Loki: Beyond Magic, Mischief and Madness
by CurtisMcQueen8
Summary: All his life, Loki has pushed himself to prove that he was his brother's equal. Until he realizes that he is not and does not have to be. Thor is an Aesir, born of two powerful gods. He is a giant, a shapeshifter, a sorcerer, a force of chaos. He is Loki. Nothing more, but nothing less either. [I know there are tons but this is my Loki-centered Infinity War fix-it fic. Enjoy!]
1. Darkness

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. All rights belong to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.**

* * *

 _Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong.  
No matter how fast light travels,  
it finds the darkness has always got there first,  
and is waiting for it._

~ Terry Pratchett

 _You never lose your demons.  
You can only learn to live above them._

~ The Ancient One (Dr. Strange)

 _Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lonely._

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

* * *

 ** _Chapter One - Darkness_**

"This is the Asgardian refugee vessel Statesman," the young man, whose name Loki could not remember and did not care to remember anyway, gasped into the ship's communication system, releasing a crackling plea for help into the vastness of the universe. A plea for help that Loki knew was never going to come.

 _We are under assault. I repeat we are under assault. Engines are dead, life support failing. We have very few soldiers here. This is not a Warcraft. I repeat this is not a Warcraft_ …

His entire body had begun to tremble as soon as the shadow of the Sanctuary had loomed over the Grandmaster's ship and no matter how intently he tried to calm himself down, Loki failed. He stood frozen in terror, his heart feeling like a heavy physical object wedged into this chest.

A seismic blast of energy tore through the ship in a fierce purple glow and the disciples of the Black Order began to pour into their vessel.

"Loki!" Valkyrie was shouting at him from a few feet away where she was guiding women and children into the only rescue vessel that the ship possessed, the annoyingly talkative Kronan and his unsightly insectoid companion by her side. "Stop brooding, will you? I could really use some help here."

Loki's eyes slid towards Thor, who began to fight off the disciples of the Black Order flanked by Heimdall, the Hulk and a few remaining Asgardian warriors.

"All the help I could give you would be in vain," murmured Loki, his voice a trembling whisper. He reached for his magic and released a gleaming burst of green energy from his fingertips that burned a hole through the other wall of the ship. "You must fly them out of here _now_. Save as many as you can."

The Valkyrie's lips opened in protest.

"Go now!" Loki shouted when he sensed the presence of Thanos and ice began pouring down his back. "This is an order!"

Valkyrie gave a curt nod and swung herself into the cockpit with one swift, elegant motion. The Kronan pulled one last woman into the rescue vessel before he closed its doors and the sound of engines powering up drowned out Loki's frantic heartbeat. He had always known that his day of reckoning would come. He had always known that he was living on borrowed time. What he had not known was that he would reconcile with his brother before Thanos found him and that this would make it that much harder to face up to his previous transgressions.

Before he could think anything else, his greatest nightmare appeared in the opening of the ship's wall in the flesh and Loki's stomach churned with dread. He had to close his eyes to fight the wave of nausea washing through him.

Thanos lifted his enormous, golden-gloved hand and released a blast of treacherously shimmering Power Stone energy at Thor, who instantly crumbled to his knees. Screams of horror filled the ship. The smell of fear and death streamed into Loki's nose, the metallic tang of blood biting into his throat.

"I know what it is like to lose," Thanos growled and as soon as Loki heard the titan's voice, he felt his mind yield to the darkness he had fought so hard to renounce those past years. "To feel so desperately that you are right yet to fail, nonetheless."

Loki watched in horror as the titan grabbed Thor by the neck and pulled him up from the ground as if he was nothing but a child. "It is frightening," Thanos continued over Thor's groaning, "turns the legs to jelly."

Loki squirmed to fight it, but the darkness began to gnaw at the edges of his sanity. It was so powerful and so menacing that he could almost feel it touching his skin. _Not again_. He knew he would not be able to endure it a second time. He did not remember much from its first encounter with it but he remembered the powerlessness against that darkness. It was like a bottomless ocean that had kept him it its grip, swirling him around until he was seeing stars. He had struggled at first, as everyone would, but you soon get tired of fighting against so mighty a force. His mind and body had grown weak and he had drowned in that darkness, its evil shadows filling his thoughts like water streaming into a drowning man's lungs. There was no stopping it. You fight, but fighting against water is useless because you gasp for breath but the very reflex that has kept you alive is now killing you and the tighter you hold on to life, the sooner you lose it.

He had surrendered himself to the darkness once and it had twisted everything. Thoughts. Memories. Emotions. It had made everything that he had thought was real seem unreal and everything that he had considered unreal seem terrifyingly, grotesquely genuine; and those things he remembered that had, in reality, never transpired, at least not in that way, had seemed realer to him than any other memory of his entire life. His brother grabbing him by the hand, both of their lives hanging by a thread as they were holding on to the collapsing rainbow bridge; the sight of his boots with nothing under them but the bottomlessness of space; their father appearing out of nowhere, telling him that he was wasting his time trying to make him proud because the Allfather would _never_ be proud of a monster's offspring; his brother's face breaking into a sneer; hissing, "Monsters have no place in Asgard, Loki," before hurling him into the void.

The darkness had fabricated memories that were to this day pulsating through his brain like strobe lights on bad days.

"But I ask you, to what end?" asked Thanos.

 _That is a very good question._

"Dread from it, run from it, destiny arrives all the same. And now, it's here. Or should I say 'I am'?" Thanos exhaled and raised the Infinity Gauntlet for emphasis, the Power Stone's purple glint piercing Loki's eye.

"You talk too much," gurgled Thor, his mouth filled with his own blood.

 _Stop talking, brother_ , Loki pleaded silently and mentally whispered a spell to protect his mind from the intrusion he knew was coming. _We need to think_. _We need to—_

But he was too slow and too nervous and his mind was too quaky, his thoughts slipping away from his conscious like slick fish.

"The Tesseract," Thanos ordered in his deep, bloodcurdling voice. "Or your brother's head. I assume you have a preference."

"Oh, I do," replied Loki in a voice that was not entirely his own. "Kill away."

 _Yes, torture him, kill him_ , snarled a dark voice inside his mind that sometimes filled his head with morbid thoughts. It wanted to see Thor suffer and it rejoiced when Thor began to squirm in the titan's powerful grasp, screaming in anguish.

Loki's eye twitched when his brother's cries tore right through his very soul and chased off the hateful thoughts. "Alright, stop!" Loki shouted. _Don't you dare hurting him as you hurt me_.

"We don't have the Tesseract," Thor gasped, his breath hitching with pain and exhaustion. "It was destroyed on Asgard."

 _Well, not quite, you gullible nitwit_. Loki did not know what exactly the consequences would have been, had he let the Space Stone disintegrate with the Realm Eternal, but he could at least envision that they would be far-reaching and so he had sealed the Tesseract away.

Loki looked at Thanos and winced at the soulless determination in his face, then glanced down at Thor, who cowered knee-deep in debris, his face a grimace of pain covered in dirt and blood and tears. Loki knew that Thanos would not spare his brother's life and so he reached into the pocket dimension, pulled out the glowing Tesseract and presented it to the titan, his heart stumbling like a drunk inside his chest.

 _By all the Realms, what are you doing, you volatile imbecile?_ The dark voice cackled into his ear. _Do you think the cube will be enough to pay your debt? To save your brother? Have you gone entirely mad?_

"You really are the worst brother," grumbled Thor and Loki's heart gave a painful lurch when he heard those words.

 _He is not worth it_ , _you foolish varmint_. _Why would you want to save him, anyway? So he can continue to torment you?_

Loki tried to force a deep breath into his lungs and briefly closed his eyes against the menace lurking deep inside his own mind. _You need to be aware of the moment, Loki,_ Frigga had told him when she had begun to teach him in magic. _You need to focus on every fiber of your being in order to feel the energy streaming through your body, all of it, and then you need to channel its powers_. He thought of his mother's voice, warm and soft as the first rays of spring sunshine after a long, cold winter. He thought of how he had loved her with his entire heart and how she had filled his with light where Odin had instilled darkness.

"I assure you, brother," said Loki, suddenly suffering from the hero's curse of hope that everything would still turn out just fine, "the sun _will_ shine on us again."

Thanos huffed a laugh. "Your optimism is misplaced, Asgardian."

 _All that time he spent twisting your memories and he does not even bother to remember that the focal point of your agony is that you are a putrid Frost Giant_.

Loki's body seethed with anger but he forced himself to stay calm and to fight back. "Well, for one thing, I am not Asgardian," he corrected Thanos, whose brow furrowed slightly. "And for another," Loki continued with a side-glance at the green beast who had inexplicably held himself back from trying to smashThanos until now, "we have a Hulk."

The Hulk hurtled towards the titan as if on cue and Loki dropped the Tesseract to protect Thor from his companion's uncoordinated movements. Under the dark voice's snarling protest, he flung himself on the ground and pushed his brother out of harm's way.

Before Loki could ask Thor about his state of well-being, Thor narrowed his eyes at him and mumbled, "Why do you always have to fail my expectations?"

Loki's mouth gaped open in surprise, hurt and anger. "Fail your expectations? I was trying to …" _Save you_ , he wanted to say, but the words died on his tongue. He was never going to save anybody, least of all himself.

Thor scrambled to his feet, grabbed a bent pipe and hurled himself back into the fight.

Loki reached for the Tesseract that was momentarily lying unguarded on the floor. The last time Loki had laid hands on the treacherously glowing cube, he had unleashed a wave of wrath and destruction upon Midgard. He had condemned thousands of innocent souls to a gruesome death in his endeavor to seek revenge for something that was, with the benefit of hindsight, almost justifiable. He had caused the death of his beloved mother when he had blindly tried to lash out at this family for imprisoning him after causing these deaths.

 _You really are the worst brother_ , Thor's words echoed through his skull. _You faked your own death, you stole the throne, stripped Odin of his power, stranded him on Earth to die, releasing the Goddess of Death_. _See, Loki, life is about, it's about growth. It's about change. But you seem to just wanna stay the same. You'll always be the God of Mischief_.

No, that was not true. He wanted to change. He had wanted to change for a while now but, sometimes, change and growth are just too painful.

 _Why do you always have to fail my expectations?_

The Tesseract stirred inside his grasp. "I'm impressed," the titan's deep, raw voice rang out inside Loki's mind while Thanos was physically fighting off the attack of the Hulk.

Loki shuddered. _How is this possible? How can he_ …? Were they still linked through the remnants of Mind Stone magic flowing through him? Had Thanos created a permanent mental connection to his thoughts when he had pried open Loki's mind? Or was it the Space Stone itself that was talking to him, to the magic of the Mind Stone inside of him? Could they all be—

"You have grown stronger since you last betrayed me," Thanos continued in that terrifying yet curiously calming voice that that had planted all the false memories in his head the first time. "But, unfortunately, you are nowhere near strong enough to defeat me."

 _I don't need to defeat you_. _I just need to defeat myself,_ Loki thought but Thanos could hear his thoughts as if the words were spoken aloud.

A condescending snort of laughter reverberated through his skull. "Are you sure you are strong enough to defeat your nature? Are you sure that you will not again bring death and destruction to the ones you claim to love?"

 _Wherever you go there is war, ruin and death!_

"It is _who_ you are, Loki. You are cursed. You carry a darkness inside you that will never leave you unless you fight really hard and you and I both know that you lack the strength and determination to do just that."

That much was true, at least. It would take him years of hard work, years without any trace of recognition, let alone praise, before the actions of his past would be thought undone and his people started trusting him again; if such a time ever came to pass. He would always be the mischievous one, the anti-hero, the wild card that nobody really knew whether or how to trust, the one whose alliances would always be unclear; even to his own people.

If only they could understand what had caused the darkness inside him grow so strong, so independent, so uncontrollable. If only he could understand it himself. At some point, that dark, evil voice that had started to whisper into his ear when he was still young—at first only faintly and easy to ignore but increasingly louder as time wore on—had gained enough strength to overpower him. He didn't understand why or how, he only knew that he could not protect himself or others from this part of himself. He had tried and he had failed countless times. He also knew that this dark voice was feeding on his controversial feelings for Thor and that it hated him. It hated him so much that, at times, Loki had felt the hatred starting to eat away at his sanity and he knew that, even if they survived this attack and rebuilt Asgard and even if he would try to stand by his brother's side because he was the rightful king, it would surface again. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not soon, but eventually it would. If he tried to do right by the Asgardian people, by his family, by Thor, and everyone would still punish him with contempt and distrust while loving Thor just for who he was … He could feel the dark voice stirring awake from a momentary slumber. No, he could not fight this.

His voice again. "See? You are still weak."

Yes, he was. It was time to stop pretending that there was a way out; that he would ever be able to develop the strength to fight against the darkness inside him for the rest of his life. It did not occur to him that it might get easier over time or that people might actually be willing to help him if he let go of his borderline narcissistic pride and revealed his struggles. The only thing that did occur to him was that there was just one way to protect Thor from having to endure another betrayal, another hysterical outburst of hatred and jealousy and rage and that was to make the dark voice disappear forever.

If he sacrificed himself for his brother, and did it right this time, Thor would finally come to understand that he had grown into something more than the chaotic, mischievous blighter he used to be; that, at heart, he was and had always been his brother, friend and ally.

Loki was so immersed in his own thoughts that he did not notice the projectiles made of debris shooting towards him until they sliced into his armor and flung him onto the ground. He saw Ebony Maw, glowering at him as he walked over to where he was cowering.

Loki's eyes fell on the blue cube in his hands and his mind cast a somersault. The Space Stone granted its wielder the ability to teleport themselves to any place they could possibly picture, regardless of physical distance. He could use it to vanish into another dimension just like that and if he did that, he would forever be free of all this madness.

 _What are you waiting for? Just do it_ , snarled the dark voice. _Or let me do it_ _but, in the name of all the gods, do something!_

The Maw held up his hand, dislodged a piece from the wall and hurled it against Loki's head. His vision exploded into blackness lit with pulsing white pinpricks of light and the Tesseract slipped from his hands. He tried to blink away the stars but felt himself lift off the ground and before he could break free from the spell, the Maw slammed his body headfirst against the wall and rendered him unconscious.

* * *

When Loki shook himself awake again, Heimdall was lying dead, a spear sticking out of his chest. The Hulk was gone. Thor was on his knees, immobilized by a girdle made of metal debris, his lips clamped shut by a makeshift muzzle, a trickle of blood running down his forehead. They were defeated. Because of him.

 _You hopeless failure._

"There are two more stones on Earth," Thanos was saying, the Space Stone glinting on the gauntlet. _The Norns be damned_. "Find them, my children, and bring them to me on Titan."

But maybe it was not too late. He could still reach the Space Stone and if he found the right spell …

"If I … might interject," Loki said without pausing to think even though he did not entirely trust himself and his motivations. It happened sometimes that a thought or an emotion split off his consciousness and began acting on its own in a way that Loki did not fully understand. All he knew was that it was as if he was changing into his own version of the Hulk, except that he did not turn into a giant green monster. At least not on the outside. On the inside, he was often no less of a monster when he relinquished control of his mind. "If you're going to Earth, you might want a guide. I do have a bit of experience in that arena."

"If you consider failure experience," Thanos mocked him.

"I consider experience experience," Loki snapped back.

The titan rewarded his retort with a contemptuous glare that went miles to define how little he thought of him and made it clear to Loki for the last time that no one would ever think of him as anything more than a nuisance. If he was truly destined to ever make a change, he was going to have to make it from another dimension or from Hel.

"Almighty Thanos. I, Loki, Prince of Asgard," Loki began softly, his voice hitching when he glanced at Thor. "Odinson," Loki breathed almost intimately over the sound of his breaking heart. The universe needed a Thor who did not have to worry about the evil insanities that lurked inside his twisted little brother's mind. Now more than ever. "The rightful king of Jotunheim, God of Mischief," Loki continued, his lungs running out of breath, "do hereby pledge to you my undying fidelity."

Yes, the speech was dramatic, maybe overly so, but Loki wanted Thor to remember it. He mentally reached into the pocket dimension once more, drew out a dagger and, in a fit of sheer and utter madness, thrust it towards the titan's neck.

Availing himself to the powers of the Space Stone, the titan paralyzed him mid-attack and magically altered the distance between his throat and the dagger. "Undying?" Thanos snorted, his tone a hybrid of amusement and annoyance. "You should choose your words more carefully," he advised and grabbed Loki by the wrist.

Loki groaned as the touch brought back the same darkness that had sucked him in when he had let go of his brother's hand because it had seemed easier to just let go than to face the painful truth that their father would never be as proud of him as he was of Thor. Thanos increased the pressure until Loki released his grip on the dagger and sent it clattering to the floor. Next to him, he heard Thor choking on his own blood.

Thanos raised the hand wearing the Infinity Gauntlet and Loki felt a wave of dread and longing wash through him. He glanced upwards, the fearful beating of his own heart thundering in his ears, but, curiously, he felt his body almost leaning into the touch.

The Gauntlet closed around his neck and yanked him off his feet. The titan was full of rage but that was just as well. Thanos had sworn to kill him a long time ago and, deep inside him, Loki had always known that he would never escape. Sometimes, he had almost waited for it to happen.

Yes, he was a coward. He was a coward and a trickster and he had spent fifteen-hundred years taking the easy way out whenever there had been trouble, running away from his true nature and from taking any responsibility for his actions. He had staged his own death in front of Thor's very eyes and had exiled his father to Midgard with a spell so that he could take his place on the throne of Asgard and hide from Thanos and the entire universe in plain sight.

But this was different. This time, Loki was doing the right thing. He was protecting his brother from future madness, future worry, future heartbreak.

This time, he would not come back. This time, he would leave Thor alone forever because that was what his brother deserved. No more failed expectations, no more schemes, no more tricks.

Loki panted for breath as he tried to focus on the Space Stone but the pressure around his neck tightened, disrupting his ability to concentrate. "I would really like to see you try to be a hero," Thanos murmured far too intimately, "like to see you fail miserably because of who you are, but, unfortunately, I just don't think you deserve another chance. You have had too many of those as it is."

Thanos increased the pressure to a point where Loki's vision blurred at the edges. He felt a sweeping sense of panic rise up inside of him when he realized that his plan was going awry. The magic of the Space Stone remained out of reach and he was running out of air, choking to death, dangling from the grip of the Mad Titan. He realized that he _was_ going to die by his past abuser's hand and he realized too that there was nothing he could do to change that.

 _That wasn't the plan_ , Loki thought frantically, his thoughts crashing into one another and tumbling over themselves. _I don't want to die. Not like this. Not right now. Not with Thor watching. Brother, I … I am so sorry … Please, help … me_ …

If he could somehow bind the essence of his spirit to the stone, his magic might survive. He might not have to die permanently. Loki gurgled.

 _Oh, Loki, make up your mind_ , snarled the dark voice.

Loki fought for air and tried to focus, to reach for the magic of the Space Stone one last time, but all he could hear was the dark voice's jabbering as his mind went dim. _Thor will survive but he will suffer. He will save Asgard's people but he will suffer. He might defeat Thanos but he will suffer. He will be safe but he will suffer._

"Y-you will never be a God," Loki told Thanos on his last breath before he felt his consciousness slipping from his grasp, his mind going blissfully blank for once.

* * *

 _Author's Note :_

 _\- Somehow, I feel the need to add that I don't think Loki deserves to suffer any more than he already did, but my mind is actually very dark and twisted, and I had this thought stuck in my head ever since I watched Infinity War that Thanos' presence actually bought all the torture memories back (even though he was not in possession of the mind stone at this point), which might have caused Loki to lose his mind and attack Thanos. I also think that, while Loki seemed to be healing in Ragnarok, madness (depersonalization/dissociative identity disorder/psychosis, whatever it was) never completely subsides and that it can be triggered by pretty much anything. (This will be addressed in subsequent chapters, of course!)_  
 _-_ _That being said, feel free to comment/ask questions/get in touch (my twitter is /at/jotunemo)._


	2. A beautifully broken soul

#2

Unfortunately, this was not the end. How could it be? He was a god—at least that was what he had grown up to believe—and gods did not die. Gods drew their strength from the human belief in their existence and as long as they believed, there was always another path. Valhalla, Hel, another place created by some powers in the universe that he did not yet know about. It did not matter where it was. The only thing that mattered was that he would have to face justice. There was a voice, seeping through the protective membrane of nothingness, a voice both angelically soft and chillingly wicked.

Loki thought that he recognized the voice somehow but he could neither place it nor make out what it was saying to him. He hesitated to open his eyes, hoping he could stall the inevitable for a little longer. He did not want to know where his path would lead him and, truth be told, he was afraid that what was awaiting him after his decent into homicidal madness in recent years would be worse than the tales of Hel he been told as a child.

The voice grew fiercer, single words filtering through his semi-conscious state like water dripping from a faucet. "You did not last long," the voice said, followed by an amused chuckle. Loki forced himself to open his eyes; and stared directly into the icy blue glare of Hela, the Goddess of Death. His older sister. Well, Thor's older sister. Their father's firstborn child. "Hello there, you little shit."

 _What the …_ He snapped to attention, glancing around frantically, but all he could see behind her smooth features was more darkness, more blackness, more nothing. He tried to jerk away but some magical spell was holding his body tightly in place. He was sitting, his arms by his side, but the only thing he could move was his head.

"Are you dead?" It was the first question that came to Loki's mind. When he had last seen her, she had been battling Surtur, a giant fire-breathing demon, while Asgard was being consumed by the destruction of Ragnarok that he, Loki, had released by putting Surtur's crown into the Eternal Flame in their father's vault. They had all assumed that she had met her doom.

Hela laughed a beautiful, silvery, enticing laugh. " _You_ are and that's all you need to know." She paused for effect. "For now."

"How can you not be dead?" Loki mumbled.

Another laugh escaped her lips, but it was no longer enticing or beautiful. It was smug and condescending, with a pinch of disgust. "I am the _Goddess_ of Death, you foolish wastrel. I am linked with death, I draw power from death, I thrive off death and death thrives off me."

"Marvelous," Loki commented and squeezed all the sarcasm he could muster into the word. Hela was arrogant and unrelenting, the likeness of their father Odin. His relationship with his father was spoiled, ruined by lies, jealously, deceit, hatred, and abuse, and the dark part stirred again at the thought of him. He had hoped that his physical demise would kill it—and if not kill it, then send it into a deep, long-lasting sleep—because death inevitably removed him from Thor but now Hela was there, fixating him with her ice cold eyes. Another one of Odin's children. _My firstborn_. Those two words uttered by Odin echoed through Loki's head, bouncing off the walls of his skull and leaving a nauseating taste on his tongue. Yes, as far as he was concerned, this was worse than any other path he could have taken. "So, I'm in Hel."

"You're _inside_ Hel. In a way," Hela replied without taking her eyes off his, studying him as if he were a scientific anomaly. Her face was mere inches from his, her expression mirroring the hunger for destruction that she carried inside her.

"In what way?" Loki asked, suddenly shuddering at the uncanny resemblance between the two of them. As far as he knew, she was Thor's biological sister, not his, but he and Hela did not only share the same jet-black hair and pale skin but also the dangerous inclination toward murderous delusions of grandeur. How was that possible? And why hadn't he given this any thought before?

"It's a special section of Hel," Hela replied, her lips curling into a deviant grin. "My refuge, if you will. I found it when _you_ released the beast that destroyed the main source of my power and Surtur's wrath catapulted me into another dimension."

Loki felt his wit stirring back to life after the darkness had almost numbed it. "You _found_ a new Hel?" How was that even possible?

She rewarded him with another grin. "You are much smarter than you look."

Loki's mind raced through all the possible implications behind this new piece of information. "How? Where? And if Asgard is not your only source of power— "

Hela brushed her right index finger against his lips. "You talk too much, Loki." She was still drilling her eyes into his, forcing her way into his soul with her curious glare, stripping down his defenses layer by layer.

He jerked his head away from her finger. "Why am I here?"

"That is a good question, isn't it?" Hela replied after a pause. Her hand came close to his face again but then stopped, her fingers curling into a fist.

Despite the knowledge that he would not be able to outstare the Goddess of Death in her own kingdom, Loki glowered at her. "Then answer it."

Another grin twitched at the corners of her mouth, illuminating the insanity in her eyes. "Don't all Asgardian warriors who perish in battle travel to Valhalla after death? Well, except for you, it seems." She paused, eyeing him even more curiously than she had before. "You're not Asgardian, are you? You're not really Odin's son."

"What makes you think that?" Loki tried to keep his voice steady against the resolve he felt crumbling away. Upon Odin's death, when the allfather had disintegrated into a cloud of golden stardust blown across the sea of Norway, Loki had finally been able to accept what had happened between them; not in the way that he could understand or forgive but in the way that he no longer felt the desire for a different outcome of his life. For better or for worse, he was Odin's second son and he had understood then that, even if he flew to the very edge of the universe to hide from himself, Odin would travel there with him. Having Hela point out to him that he was not an Odinson pained and infuriated him in equal measure.

"I can feel that you have no real sense of purpose and a sense of purpose, whatever purpose this may be, is a quality that no one born of Asgard lacks. But most of all …" Hela murmured softly as she held up the index finger of her right hand to his face again, a black-greenish form of energy sparkling into life around its tip. Loki struggled against the urge to pull back. She narrowed her eyes and her finger touched his cheek, sending a surge of pain rippling through his body. He felt his body warmth stream out of him, magically extricated by her touch. "Most of all, you don't look very much like him," Hela said bemusedly.

Loki stared down at his sapphire hands, completely in awe of his own appearance. It was a long time ago that he had first been touched by a Frost Giant and learned that Odin had taken him in, brought him to Asgard and raised him as his own for political reasons. A long time since he had realized that, in Odin's eyes, he must have always been the spawn of a monster and that his favoring of Thor was, all things considered, only natural. "Is that why I am here?" Loki asked, forcing himself to meet her gaze, hold her gaze. "Because I am a monster?"

She mock-pitied him with a sound that travestied the noise people make to soothe crying babies. "Trouble connecting with your dark side?"

"I'm trying to defeat it," Loki answered truthfully.

Hela smiled knowingly. "It is much easier to embrace it."

A deep sigh escaped Loki's lips as he began to realize that he would spend eternity in Hela's company and that there was no way out. This was his punishment. Once again, a decision he had made to the best of his judgment at the time had led him down a path of misery. _Am I truly destined to not ever do anything right?_

"Well, I suppose it doesn't matter much anymore, does it?"

"Oh, it does, believe me." Her eyes were alight with an overwhelming appetite for malice.

"How? What exactly are you going to do with me?" Loki asked, despising himself for the fact that the question had come out far more desperate and pleading than he had intended to. He stared down at his hands again, at his true colors, as the Midgardians would say. They used the expression metaphorically in order to refer to the true character of a person but in his case, it was hardly a metaphor. He was the descendant of a race that had brought nothing but destruction to the universe and his Asgardian upbringing had not been able to absorb his natural inclination toward vindictiveness, chaos and disdain for both others and himself. He was and would always be a monster. _It is who you are, Loki. You are cursed. You carry a darkness inside you that will never leave._

"First of all, I am going to take vengeance," Hela replied, her tone almost casual.

"What for?" Loki queried weakly but he already knew the answer.

Hela drew in a deep breath. "I spent almost two-thousand years in Odin's banishment but when he finally perished, allowing me to return and have access to my full powers again, _you_ destroyed my kingdom. Asgard was rightfully mine, not Thor's, and certainly not yours, you measly tapeworm, but still you arrogated to yourself the right to decide over what is mine and don't I feel the urge inside me to claw your eyes out for what you did." She came even closer to his face, straining every muscle in hers as if she were a lioness preparing for the kill _._

"Not to be nitpicky but this was actually Thor's plan, not mine, so I assume you shouldn't really take this out on _me_." Loki heard the response before he knew he had been thinking it and it proved to him how utterly pointless an endeavor it would have been to convince anyone of his loyalty toward anything, let alone his brother.

"Is that so?" Hela asked with that deadly sweet voice. "Now there's just one little problem with that question, isn't there?"

The question took Loki by complete surprise but he quickly caught himself, his mind kicking into overdrive. If he had to spend his afterlife in Hel, he could not allow himself to be lured in by her dark powers of seduction. He needed to stay sharp. "Thor is not dead." The thought made him feel infinitely better. This was why he had confronted Thanos after all. Thor was alive up there and Loki prayed that he would be for many, many centuries to come so that they would not have to encounter each other ever again, be it down here or anywhere else.

Hela scrutinized him with a faint glimmer of admiration in her eyes and it pleased him to no end that she had apparently underestimated him, if only for a moment. "And even if he was, I probably wouldn't be able to get ahold of him. So, I'm afraid, you will have to pay for both of your sins."

She pressed her palms onto his head and released a bolt of energy so fierce that Loki feared his brain was going to burst asunder. He howled in agony. His vision became blurry but bizarrely, a tiny part of him welcomed the sensation and even longed for her to continue.

She did not. "Who knew that a Jotun can withstand this?" Hela mumbled. "That is interesting."

Loki gasped for breath, his nerves simultaneously rejoicing in the pain and dreading another bolt of it. "What's second?"

Hela drew her eyebrows together. "What are you talking about?"

"You said vengeance was first," Loki panted but the waves of pain were already subsiding. "What comes second?"

Hela smiled again and this time it almost felt genuine. "Did you know that I can feed on the souls of those whose demise is connected to my being?"

"My death is not connected to you," Loki objected.

"Forgive me if I become repetitive but _you_ released the beast that destroyed Asgard. _You_ put Surtur's crown into the Eternal Flame, allowing him to regain his full strength to defeat me and devour the Eternal Realm. Moreover, when you were in the vault, you stole the Tesseract—which you should have left to burn with the rest of Asgard, by the way—and that led to _your_ death. So if you hadn't aided Thor in his quest to destroy me, well, I am sure you are intelligent enough to deduce what I am trying to tell you."

"I am indeed." There was truth in that, no doubt. His death had been more or less a consequence of Hela's voided banishment after Odin's demise but that did neither explain how she was still alive—if she was alive at all, for she had not clearly said either way—nor how she could have known what happened with the Tesseract. Unless … "You gained access to my memories," Loki growled.

"Not I," Hela clarified. "This place."

This was next to impossible but in his subconscious, Loki knew that it was not. His subconscious knew where he was and what all of this meant, and eventually the thought would rise to the surface of his conscious thinking. Loki decided to switch gears. "So, how do you control Hel now that Asgard is no longer giving you power? Who or what is?"

"You are finally starting to ask the right questions." That vicious smile again. "Let me show you something." She closed her eyes and balled her hand into a fist before spreading her fingers apart, releasing a new form of energy that sparkled to life around her fingertips in flashes of green, ice blue and turquoise. She placed her sizzling hand onto his forehead and began to chant softly.

Loki tried to jerk away but he was still paralyzed. He felt the inside of his brain beginning to burn up as if stung by a thousand steaming needles and he started to scream, his voice sounding repellently jarring in his ears. His mouth gaped open in pain, his eyes widening in terror. This was more painful than the bolt she had released before because the pain was not physical. It was as if she was slashing open his very soul. Strangely enough, he heard a long forgotten voice reverberating through his skull. _You think you know pain? He will make you long for something sweet as PAIN._ His screams tumbled over themselves as he was choking on all the memories of his life—all the memories, the true ones and the false ones and what did it matter anyway because he was _cursed, cursed, CURSED_ ; _MONSTERS HAVE NO PLACE IN ASGARD, LOKI_ ; _no,_ _I am the rightful king of Asgard; you're missing the point, there is no throne; I will not answer to you; NO, it was my birthright; your birthright was do DIE as a child, cast out onto a frozen rock; CAST OUT TO DIE; FAILURE; Frigga is the only reason you are still alive and you will never see her again; SHE NEVER TRUSTED YOU; SHE PITIED YOU; you have made me very desperate; you really are the worst brother; you're a monster; A MONSTER; monsters have no place in Asgard; this is madness; give up this poisonous dream; there's no version of this where you come out on top; you're gonna lose, it's in your nature. It is too late to save you, Loki. The boy I once knew is dead. What remains is a creature I do not recognize. Yes, Loki, YOU ARE THE MONSTER THAT PARENTS TELL THEIR CHILDREN ABOUT AT NIGHT, LITTLE LAUFEYSON._

"Laufeyson, huh?" Hela released him and stared with morbid curiosity. "This is delicious."

Loki licked his lips, tasting the glacial sweat of panic. He panted, willing his surroundings to swim back into focus and release him from the nightmares buried deep inside him. Yes, this was worse than he had imagined Hel. It was _a lot_ worse.

"What a beautifully broken soul you have, my _little_ _brother_."

"You … can … have it," Loki wheezed as he struggled against the fear that anytime soon now, his mind would shatter into a million pieces. He could not go through this again. He could not live through this a second time. "Take it from me … please."

Hela burst out laughing. Loki shuddered as the sound crashed against the wall of nothingness and bounced back to them before it slowly ebbed away. "What use would your agony be if I took it from you?" She smiled at him and softly stroked his cheek. "You see, anguish, terror and evil have always been another source of my power. Luckily, the universe is a much darker place now than it was two-thousand years ago. Souls are corrupted, full of darkness and despair. I no longer need Asgard. You and your beautiful delusion will be my main power source from now on and it will make me a lot stronger a lot faster than I thought possible."


	3. Help me, Brother

#3

During a pitch-black, starless night several weeks later, as Loki was wading through the murky waters of semi-consciousness, trying to fight his way out of his own head, Thor woke with the peculiar sensation that someone was calling out to him. It was a faint voice, barely above a rasp, but he recognized it nonetheless. _Help me, brother …_ His body jerked awake, his heart slamming against his ribs.

"Loki …" The word came out desperately, skidding on his shaky voice. Thor felt a sob clawing at the back of his throat and he covered his mouth with this hand, biting the inside of his palm to hold it back.

Over a month had passed since Thanos' attack on their ship—over a month since he'd had to watch his brother's lifeless body being thrown at his feet like a rag doll—but he still could not bring himself to believe that Loki was truly gone this time. He never really died, not like other people. Not even like other gods. When Thanos had murdered his friend Heimdall under his very nose, Thor's mind had instantly grasped that he would never see the other man again. When Thanos had choked the life out of his brother shortly after, however, he had still sensed a glimmer of hope amid all the inexpressible pain of loss and desertion that this was not the end. How could it be? This was not the first time he had thought him dead.

"Your family has been such a toxic mess," Valkyrie had commented once, partly surprised, partly intrigued, when he had reminisced about the events leading up to Asgard's destruction shortly after they had reunited on Midgard. "Especially your relationship with Loki."

As far as Thor was concerned, this was an understatement. His relationship with Loki had complicated during the past years, becoming increasingly tainted by jealously, grief, despair and the assignment of blame for things that were far beyond what either of them could control. Maybe the relationship had even been complicated from the outset and he had been too self-absorbed to notice, but even if that was true, it did not change much. What remained was the fact that, somewhere along the line, Loki had ventured a voyage into the dark side and had never fully returned. It had all started, Thor presumed, with Loki finding out that he was not Asgardian by birth and that, consequently, he had no right to the throne. This must have been a major disruption to his brother's life, although Thor had not perceived it as such back in the day. If anything, he had shrugged it off, attributing his brother's sudden fits of insane rage to his missing sense of self-worth. Even as a child, Loki had always complained that he was not being appreciated enough but to Thor these complaints had always been nothing but symptoms of weakness and a lack of virility and strength. When Loki had been confronted with his true parentage, however, the already existing suspicion that he was being mistreated had evolved into sheer self-destructive madness; but even that had not been enough for Thor to pause for a moment and reflect on his brother's behavior. It was only now, as he was sitting in his own bed in the middle of the night several years later, with the cold sweat of a horrific nightmare drying on his skin, that Thor allowed himself to think about everything that had come to pass between them since that first fateful encounter with the Frost Giants on Jotunheim.

He imagined how he would have felt if he had been to discover that Odin was not his father and that he was instead descended from a race that was considered vile and lesser creatures among his own people. Was it truly surprising that something in Loki's mind had shattered upon the discovery of his true heritage and that he had never been able to piece it fully back together? Thor had to admit that Loki's psychological reaction was not entirely incomprehensible but, at the same time, he still held the belief that it was no excuse for his brother's behavior in the aftermath of the revelation. He'd told him the lie of their father's demise after all and he had tried to kill him. Thor had been banished to Earth at the time, stripped of his powers by their father as punishment for a reckless hunger for war that had endangered the Asgardian population. Loki had visited him, telling him that Odin had died and that he could never return home because the peace with Jotunheim, Loki's place of birth, was conditioned upon his exile. When Thor had found out the truth, Loki had sent one of Asgard's protectors to kill him. He had also threatened to kill the woman Thor had loved at the time. And he had killed his biological father in an attempt to gain Odin's respect or, maybe, he had done it in order to erase his past. It hardly mattered now. What mattered was that, as soon as Loki had realized that Odin would hold him accountable for his actions, he had thrown himself into the abyss of space, evading responsibility at all costs. Despite the events preceding what he had thought of as his brother's death at the time, the thought of his brother being gone had pained Thor in great measure.

Until Loki had come out of wherever he had been hiding about a year later, apparently having lost what was left of his mind. He had announced that he would take over Midgard and he had opened a portal to outer space, unleashing an army of war-hungry aliens upon New York City, which had resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent people. During the ensuing battle, Loki had tried to kill him again, throwing him out of a plane crashing down to Earth at he didn't know how many miles an hour and then stabbing him in the side a few hours later. In that very moment, Thor had felt the betrayal deep inside him, the realization that he had lost the brother he'd grown up with not to death but to insanity almost devouring his heart. Eventually, Loki had been captured by the Avengers—a group of remarkable people with superhuman strengths Thor had later come to call his friends—and he'd brought him back to face Asgardian justice. Odin had imprisoned Loki in their dungeons, sentencing him to a life in seclusion and Thor, still hurt and enraged by his brother's treason, had not visited him once.

Until another tragedy had crippled Asgard, threatening the sanity of Odin and the very foundations of their entire kingdom with it. While Loki was locked away in the dungeons, the Dark Elves—an evil race led by Malekith who desired to plunge the entire universe into a never-ending, all-consuming darkness—had invaded Asgard and unleashed death and destruction upon it in the search for the weapon that would allow them to carry out their plan. Their attack had claimed the death of his mother Frigga, which had numbed Thor's soul with unimaginable pain but had aroused in Odin the far more dangerous sensation of rage and revengefulness. His grief mixed with his thirst for revenge had overpowered him, extinguishing every ounce of rationality and common sense until Odin had been willing and ready to sacrifice however many Asgardian warriors it took to strike back against Malekith. He had insisted that the weapon the Dark Elves were searching for was not to leave Asgard and that the Bifrost, Asgard's main connection to the rest of the universe, remained closed for everyone trying to enter or leave the kingdom. Thor had known that this would end in a tragedy costing the life of several thousand innocent Asgardian souls. He had known that he could not let this happen, that he had to protect the people of Asgard, and so he had sought Loki's aid in order to remove the weapon from Asgard to protect its people. At the time, he would have rather bitten off and eaten his own fingers than to ask Loki for help but, unfortunately, his brother was the only being Thor knew who possessed the knowledge of secret pathways through the universe; the only one who could help him escape the kingdom with the Bifrost closed.

Loki had thanked him by using the opportunity of his liberation to stage his own death in front of Thor's eyes when they had reached the home planet of the Dark Elves. Once again, he had mourned for him despite his anger. Once again, Loki had not truly died but had sneaked back into Asgard instead and, after exiling their father with the help of one of his spells, had posed as Odin for an incredible four years. If he allowed himself to think about it, Thor would still scorn himself for having remained unaware of his brother's doing for so long but, in his defense, he had left Asgard for Earth shortly after the defeat of the Dark Elves to live with Jane Foster, the woman he had loved at the time.

Yes, Loki was the master of mischief and deceit. He had deluded Thor so many times that he had lost count and he had been convinced for years that he would never be able to trust his brother _ever_ again. The spell Loki had cast on Odin had weakened him and ultimately resulted in his death, which had made Thor even more furious since his brother had hazarded the consequence of Odin's demise, seemingly without thought, when he had chosen to impersonate him. Trusting Loki, Thor had thought upon watching his beloved father's physical form disintegrate into golden dust, was no option for any half-intelligent being in the universe. "This is your doing," Thor had groaned, his fingers itching to beat Loki senseless for all the misery he had caused him throughout their lives.

For better or for worse, he had never gotten the chance to act on his basic instincts. Immediately after their father's death, the fabric of whatever had been holding Thor's life together for more than fifteen-hundred years had unraveled at a dazzling speed. When Odin's life force had extinguished, his sister Hela—Odin's firstborn and the _Goddess of Death_ —had appeared through a portal, claiming the throne of Asgard and declaring war upon him. Thor had been convinced he would be able to defeat her but he was soon confronted with her seemingly limitless powers as she crushed his hammer Mjölnir, which he had believed to be the source of his strength until that moment, to pieces with her bare hands. Loki had panicked at the demonstration of her strength, commanding the guardian of the Bifrost to bring them back to Asgard, and, naturally, Hela had jumped at the chance, throwing herself into the rainbow bridge after them.

If only that had been the extent of it. She had pushed them both out of the Bifrost fueled by incredible physical strength, first Loki and then himself, gaining unhindered admission into Asgard. Both he and Loki had, independently of one another, stranded on the whimsical planet of Sakaar with Loki having been, much to Thor's dismay, lusted after by the being in charge who called himself the Grandmaster. He himself had no such luck. Upon his arrival, Thor learned that Loki had apparently touched down at that God forsaken place several weeks before him—which, he figured, could only be possible since Loki had been pushed out of the Bifrost by Hela a few moments earlier—and that his brother's mischievous demeanor had caught the attention of the Grandmaster. While Loki was allowed to move freely, being handed bilious green martinis wherever he went, Thor had been forced to fight against The Hulk, a member of the Avengers in days long past, in the Grandmaster's _Contest of Champions_. Oh yes, his life was truly "fucked up", as the Midgardians would say.

Nevertheless, in the midst of all that Sakaarian craziness, he and Loki had somehow moved closer together. That did not mean that Loki hadn't tried to betray him yet again during his escape from the Grandmaster's prison—he had and although Thor was used to it, every betrayal initially hurt as if it were the very first one—but after that last attempted proverbial stab in the back, Loki had gotten back his senses. With Odin and Frigga gone and Asgard presumed lost, he had, for some inexplicable reason, apparently accepted that, as tainted and crazy as their brotherly relationship might be, it was all that was left of their past and that them being there together meant that they had to fight Hela together in order to defer Asgard's doom.

As far as Thor was concerned, Loki's eventual decision to fight against Hela by his side was compensation enough for most of his previous transgressions. Thor had even allowed himself to believe for a moment that his little brother, whom he had thought lost for so long, had finally returned to him and that they would be able to start over on Midgard once this was all over. He had wanted to believe this so badly. Despite everything that had happened between them, despite the rage and the pain Thor had felt every time Loki had done something outrageous, he still wanted, still needed, to believe that he would be able to change him back to the person he had once been.

He had soon been reminded, however, that every single one of Loki's pledges to allegiance obscured at least ten possible ways of betrayal already planned out to the last detail and that his brother's course for semi-redemption was probably nothing more than another trick. Battling Hela, it had occurred to Thor that the only way to overpower Hela and save Asgard was to destroy the place and save its people and he had sent Loki to their father's vault to unleash the beast that would lay waste to their homeland. Loki had fulfilled his responsibility; but not without helping himself to one of the Infinity Stones that eventually—after the fight was over, their people were safe, and Hela was destroyed—led Thanos straight to them, allowing him to kill the majority of the people that they had just managed to save.

Thor felt tears stinging his eyes as he recalled the attack. The course of events his life had taken after Hela's defeat was, if not entirely, in great parts Loki's fault. He had done it again. Shortly after Thor had allowed himself to believe his brother had somehow come back to him, Loki had demonstrated once more that Thor was a perfect fool for believing in him. Worse still, this time Loki had not stopped at betrayal or claiming something that did not belong to him. This last time, he had … Thor still did not understand what exactly his brother had been doing. He had replayed the scene of Loki's death in his head over and over again, first consciously in order to understand, then involuntarily in his nightmares. Loki giving up the Tesseract, facing Thanos, trying to stab the titan with that tiny little dagger, his green eyes drowning in tears and blood, his trembling lips chapped, his expression convulsed by terror and alarm. This had been the worst. Loki had suffered through his fair share of emotional breakdowns throughout the years but Thor had never seen such glaring fear in his brother's eyes. Loki had been scared stiff, freezing mid-movement like magma solidifying on a rocky slope, when he had heard Thanos' voice but then he had still tried to kill him with so small a weapon. Except he couldn't have expected to kill him with it. He would have known, must have known, the inevitable outcome. Which left only one possibility that Thor had not yet dared to put into words.

"Oh, Loki," Thor muttered into his hand, trying to suffocate the scream that wanted to come but it overpowered him easily, forcing its way out of his lungs, through his fingers and into the room.

Next to him, Valkyrie started from her sleep. "What is it?" She looked at him drowsily, her pillow-tousled curls falling into her face.

"Just a nightmare," Thor whispered softly but he knew his trembling voice would betray him just as Loki had a thousand times. "Go back to sleep."


	4. He might have hated himself

#4

"Yeah, right." Although her voice was still breathy from deep slumber, Valkyrie's mind managed to shake off sleep astonishingly quickly. "In case no one has ever told you, you are a miserable liar."

Thor looked into her deep brown eyes, allowing himself to be soothed by the care and affection reflected in them for the fraction of a moment. Her hand traveled across the blanket, landing on his forearm. "It's Loki, isn't it?"

The way Valkyrie had asked the question, her voice full of both pity and exasperation, somehow angered him and he jumped out of the bed as if the sheets had suddenly caught fire. "I said it was _nothing_!" Thor shouted and fled his room in the residential complex of the Avengers Facility in upstate New York. His feet almost tripped over themselves as he ran through the large corridor that opened into a giant lounge room with floor-to-ceiling windows and a French door, which he opened hastily, sucking in the cold night air. His heart was still thundering in his chest as he gazed upon the coal-black sky, seeking for answers that he would find within himself if only he dared to look for them.

Valkyrie sneaked up on him as silently and gracefully as a cat on the prowl but he could feel her presence anyway and felt his entire body tense up. Thor did not understand why he was reacting so strongly against her compassion. On some mornings, the painful realization that he had lost not only both of his parents but his best friends, his homeland and his brother was almost too much to bear and he would sink back into the pillows, paralyzed with the desire to go back to sleep and never wake to that reality again. Thor knew he should have been grateful that she was there but he was not. He turned around all the same.

"You remember that time on Sakaar," Valkyrie asked, a slick smile flickering across her features, "when you told me that I was a coward for trying to run away from my past? Well, you are as much of a coward now, aren't you?" She had the thin white bedspread wrapped around her bare shoulders, a decanter of Tony Stark's whiskey in her hand, and was looking at him in anticipation.

"I suppose I am," Thor mumbled, struggling against that stubborn part of himself that wanted to shut her out even though he could feel his love for her filling up his entire body, pleasantly warming him from the inside.

Valkyrie took a few slow steps towards him, gauging whether or not he would bolt again. When he didn't, she placed her free hand on his shoulders and pushed him gently into one of the rattan lounges on the porch. She plopped down next to him, placed her legs onto his lap and took a swig of whiskey. "I understand your torment perfectly," she said after a long pause, her hazel eyes searching for his in the darkness. "You have lost everything and it seems like there is no way that you could ever pass through this experience and still come out … whole somehow."

Thor snorted in response.

"Believe me, I have been there." She took another swig before she handed him the decanter.

He took it, twirling the liquid in it absentmindedly before he took a large gulp. Yes, Valkyrie had been there. She had once battled Hela and lost everyone and everything. Thor knew that her words were not just empty condolences but that she could truly empathize with his agony. "I am sorry," he told her. "I didn't mean to—"

"I know," Valkyrie cut him off and he was beyond grateful for her understanding. She took the decanter from him and helped herself to another swig. "But I would still appreciate it if you talked to me about it."

Thor remained silent, his eyes still searching the night sky for answers that were a long time in the coming. If it had just been his bereavement, he was sure he would have been able to live through the pain. Unfortunately, it was not just _that_. What was even worse was that he had also missed the opportunity to defeat Thanos in the final battle on Midgard by making a foolish mistake and the persistent feeling of guilt assailing him almost every minute of every day was more crushing than any loss could ever be. Blinded by rage and despair, he had neglected the chance to kill the titan by aiming for his chest instead of for his head, which had allowed Thanos to still use the weapon after Thor's attack and turn half of the population of the entire universe to dust. Thor had been told many times that this outcome was not his fault but if Odin had drilled one thing into him, it was that the Gods of Asgard were responsible for the preservation of peace within and the protection of the Nine Realms and he had been in derelict of this very duty because of his personal torment. Because of Loki. Because his incorrigible little brother had once again lost his mind. "It wouldn't change anything," Thor whispered.

"There is something in your eyes that is usually not there when you recall these events," Valkyrie observed, leaving him once again speechless at how sharp her mind was despite all the alcohol she was consuming. "You usually do not scream like that, either, which tells me you are not just devastated. You are angry."

Thor exhaled a deep breath.

"A very specific kind of angry. Come on," Valkyrie prompted him, her foot pricking into his stomach. "Loki might have been a backstabbing little shit but he was your brother and I respect that you loved him. Tell me what's on your mind."

Thor reached for the decanter and she handed it to him, visibly pleased by the half-smile he felt tugging at his lips in reaction to how well she was able to read him. "Sometimes I hate myself for loving him so much," Thor sighed and took another sip. "Despite everything."

"He was your brother. Of course you loved him."

Thor winced at the past tense but forced himself to continue. "What baffles me, now that I am thinking about it, is that I feel like he did on purpose sometimes. That he betrayed me just so I would get mad. Almost as if he wanted to provoke a reaction, almost as if he wanted me to hate him."

"Why would he have wanted you to hate him?" Valkyrie asked softly.

"Because I think he might have actually hated himself," Thor replied quietly, feeling as naked and vulnerable as he would have if he had revealed his own feelings to her.

Much to his dismay, a snort escaped her lips. "Loki? _Hating_ himself?" Valkyrie asked, her expression twisted by disbelief and amusement. "I've never met anyone as full of themselves as your brother. The entire time he was on Sakaar—"

"He was only on Sakaar for a _few weeks_!" Thor yelled, his heart threatening to finally crush beneath the weight of yet another sensed betrayal. "Do not ever tell me that you respect my love for him again if you doubt, even for a second, how well I knew him."

Valkyrie did not flinch but instead, almost nonchalantly, said, "Toxic mess, as I said." She narrowed her eyes before her eyebrows jolted up as if to challenge him. "You need to get this all out. Loki is _dead_ now and you are not doing yourself any favors if you keep pretending that he is not or that he was actually a saint who deserves your unconditional forgiveness because neither of that is true!"

The sound that came out of him was half-laugh, half-sob. "You don't understand."

The problem was that he did not yet entirely understand it either. For the longest time, Thor had believed that a mixture of spite, boredom and jealousy had been propelling Loki to act in such incredible ways over and over again; that he had this mischievous part inside himself that came from his true parentage and that he did not want to or was too weak to fight it. He had also believed that Loki was entirely content with it, probably even enjoying it. He had only very recently understood that this might not be the case. During the four years he had lived on Midgard before discovering that Loki was alive on Asgard, Thor had learned that it was mostly insanity and not evil that was driving people to do inexplicable things. By Midgardian standards, Loki was not evil but insane. They used this term in a way that Thor could not completely grasp but, as far as he understood, Midgardians believed that emotional distress could alter the brain somehow and cause a disruption of the personality that was beyond the affected person's control. It was like a sickness of the brain that might or might not be cured by specialists who Midgardians called psychologists. Those would probably refer to him as "mentally disturbed" or "emotionally disturbed" and even though these labels appeared to capture Loki's state of mind perfectly, they were still leaving a bitter taste on Thor's tongue. For someone who had lived most of his life as a god, considering himself above the petty troubles of the Midgardian population, this was difficult to understand and even more difficult to accept. Nevertheless, it was providing Thor with another excuse to believe in the possibility of Loki's redemption and if not that—because Loki was actually dead—it was at least providing him with a way to understand the reasons behind his brother's behavior that had bewildered him for so long.

"Then _tell_ me," Valkyrie insisted.

"I _tried_ to tell you a minute ago and you laughed in my face," Thor reminded her and took another sip of whiskey, staring into the night and childishly avoiding her gaze as punishment.

She mulled this over. "I am sorry," she said after a while, fabricating an expression just contrite enough for him to regret his earlier outburst. "It's just that the way I came to know him … Let's just say, I never would have guessed in a million years that he might have _hated_ himself."

"He knows how to conceal it," Thor mumbled, more to himself than to her.

"But does that … change anything?" Valkyrie asked after a long pause.

"It does," Thor mumbled, surprising himself with the words that followed, "if he got himself killed because of it."

Valkyrie took the decanter from him, absentmindedly drinking. "Do you really think he did?" she asked, her words dissipating into the night. " _Get_ himself killed?"

Thor tried to breathe around the pain constricting his chest. "I think so, yes," he whispered, closing his eyes against the devouring emotions. "I think he was very scared and troubled and just wanted it to be … over." The words had a finality that made his stomach lurch. He reached for the decanter and grabbed it as if it was the only thing anchoring him to reality.

Valkyrie's hand brushed his forehead before her fingers landed on his head, stroking through his hair in a circular motion. "I am sorry," she whispered softly, well aware that no words could ever be of help in a situation like this. Still, she kept talking. "Both for what I said and for what you are going through right now and I wish that I could somehow ease the pain, believe me, I would if I could but—"

"I heard him calling," Thor cut her off. He had not meant to tell her but the words just came out. "Loki called out for me."

"Calling how?" Valkyrie asked to his genuine surprise. He would have expected her to insist that his grief was slowly maddening him, to tell him that he needed to come to terms with Loki's death and that it was probably for the better that he was no longer with them.

"What do you mean how?" Thor asked back, feeling her intent gaze upon his skin. He tried to backpedal immediately. "It was probably nothing more than a dream but …" His voice caught. What in the allfather's name had he been thinking telling her about this in the first place?

"What did he _say_?" Valkyrie prompted him.

" _Help me, brother_ ," Thor muttered, feeling foolish as soon as the words had escaped his lips. Valkyrie was frowning at him but he could still sense that she was taking him seriously. He raised an eyebrow at her. "Funny how you would believe in an instant that Loki is calling out to me from the afterlife after you could not wrap your head around the idea that how he acted on Sakaar was just one humongous show designed to fool you and everyone else into believing he was actually in control of what he was doing."

This finally made her laugh genuinely. "I am sorry, Thor, but I guess you cannot really blame me for being fooled by his performance. He was a great deceiver."

In spite of her continuous use of the past tense, Thor felt the smile on his lips. "I guess not. He had me fooled for many, many years. Our parents, too, I think. Even I believed until very recently that the narcissistic grin he flashes at you is his way of telling you he thinks you are beneath him but it is not. It is a mask. I saw the real Loki for the first time shortly before he died and the real Loki is … was … hagridden by something very dark."

"By what?" Valkyrie asked when he did not continue.

Thor took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I don't know exactly but Thanos does. I know he does. They had some sort of connection that was almost tangible. I think they might have communicated with each other beyond the words that were spoken."

"How would that be even possible?"

"Through the power stone maybe," Thor mumbled. He closed his eyes against the recollection of feeling entirely powerless when Thanos had grabbed his head with the Infinity Gauntlet, discharging the destructive energy of the infinity gem against him and making him feel a surge of pain so intense that he had understood for the first time what the hitherto abstract concept of _fainting_ actually entailed. He told Valkyrie about this, confiding everything to her, and then moved on to how Loki had previously been under Thanos' orders when he had attacked New York City a couple of years ago. How his brother's memories had been twisted by the mind stone that had been in the titan's possession prior to Loki's arrival on Midgard, where Loki himself had used it to brainwash a number of people whose services he needed for the execution of a plan that was born out of vindictive madness.

Valkyrie's lips had parted in amazement and revolt.

Thor's palms had become sweaty holding the decanter. He took another sip of the burning liquid before he continued. "He was not himself during all of this. He spoke of things that never happened and accused me of things I never did. Back then, I was convinced that he had actually gone mad but—" Thor helped himself to a slug of whiskey before he told her about the day he and his brother had been holding on to the collapsing Bifrost. "He let go of my hand and plummeted into space." He took a deep breath to steady himself. "But he did not die. Thanos found him somehow and I believe that he used the power stone to seize control of him. He only used it against me for a few minutes and I—" His voice was beginning to tremble and he took another slug, emptying the decanter. "Whoever wields the power stone can manipulate organic matter of every form and if Thanos was in possession of the power stone back then, he might have used it on Loki, too. Same with the mind stone. I believe Thanos manipulated the energetic manifestations of his thoughts, altered existing memories and fabricated new ones that led him to go out of his mind."

Valkyrie stared at him in consternation.

"He might have even created a connection to Loki's mind that never really broke off," Thor pondered aloud. "I mean, it did break off at some point but he was safe on Asgard. The minute Asgard was lost and Loki came face to face with him again on our ship …" His voice trailed off.

"Are you sure this is possible?" Valkyrie asked carefully after she had digested at least part of all the information he had just unloaded onto her. "That you are not just making up excuses for him?"

"I have never seen him this terrified," Thor persisted. "He was rigid with fear. If you had seen him … He was not himself. This version of Loki was _not_ my brother. Something else was in control of him and I think it was Thanos."

Valkyrie asked the obvious question next, her mind connecting the dots as quickly as ever. "Do you think Thanos used the power stone to kill him?"

"That is what I think, yes," Thor replied quietly, his eyes glued to the empty decanter in his hands.

"Would that influence where Loki went after death?" Valkyrie went on, firing questions at him in rapid succession. "You don't think there could be some kind an afterlife dimension connected to the Infinity Stones? Is that even possible? That they play by their own rules?"

"I have no idea," Thor conceded. "All I know is that if Thanos is connected to Loki …"

"Loki might still be connected to him," Valkyrie finished his thought for him and then paused, if only for decency's sake. "Particularly if he was killed by the stone. And that means he could lead us to him if he was still here."

Thor nodded his approval and gently pushed her legs aside. "I need to speak to Tony."

* * *

 _Notes:_

 _\- I know that Valkyrie isn't actually her name, yes, but I like the name a lot, so I decided to stick with it._


	5. Of Anxiety, Insanity and Uncertainties

#5

The first light of the sun was painting its first brushstrokes of orange into the dark sky when Thor found Tony Stark in the hangar of the Avengers facility. He was standing with his legs apart and his arms crossed, staring thoughtfully into the hood of one of his cars, a piece of oil-stained cloth slapped across his shoulder. Thor harrumphed to call attention to his arrival but Tony took no notice of him. His eyes, now constantly shadowed by dark circles, remained fixed on the car as if the engine held a mystery he needed to unravel.

"Tony!"

The other man looked up, barely tilting his head as a greeting. Thor felt his heart break a little more at Tony's visible disconnection from himself and the world. Thanos' actions had taken their toll on every single one of the remaining Avengers but while some of them were suffering, like Thor himself, Tony Stark's spirit was crushed. The entire desolation the titan had left behind was glaring at Thor from Tony's eyes whenever he looked at him. It was as if his eyes had soaked up the misery of the entire population and it pained Thor greatly that he was unable to take away even a tiny bit of that misery. Worse still, he was about to add fuel to the fire.

"What are you doing?" Thor asked.

"I am just checking up on 'em," Tony replied in a low voice. "Some of these haven't seen the light of day since …" His voice trailed off. He mechanically went through the motions of screwing a cap back onto one of the containers in the hood and slamming it shut. "I should give 'em a proper ride sometime."

Thor let out a breath he hadn't noticed he'd been holding. "Tony, I need to talk to you about something and you are not going to like it."

"I'm not?"

"I need to be gone for a while."

The other man frowned. "Why?"

"I'm looking for someone."

"As long as you're not looking for Loki." He'd meant it as a joke but Tony realized soon enough that he'd hit the nail square on the head. "You're absolutely right. I don't like it all."

"Let me explain, please," Thor mumbled, painfully aware of how sappy his words must sound to the other man.

"There's nothing to explain," Tony snarled at him, his gaze icing over with hostility. "You're not gonna search for your whack job brother and bring him back here. He practically blazed the trail for Thanos, for God's sake! It's his fault that we're all—" Tony was cut off by his own rapidly accelerating respiration. Sweat started pooling on his forehead and he tumbled backwards, pressing his palm gently on his chest, massaging his heart with trembling fingers.

Thor felt a surge of panic. "What is it, Tony? Are you sick?"

"Anxiety," Tony wheezed, collapsed into a metal chair and closed his eyes. "It's lovely, really, and it's all your brother's fault."

Thor had no clear concept of what anxiety meant, so he simply said, "I apologize on his behalf."

Tony opened one eye and stared at him in disbelief as he took deep breaths of air, his hand resting firmly on his chest. "You can be such a dipshit sometimes," he panted.

Thor ignored the insult. "Do you need some water? I could—"

Tony held up his hand, inhaled deeply and slowly let out a long breath, repeating the procedure about ten times, as Thor stood about watching helplessly. "I'm fine." He looked up at Thor from the chair and, with the anxiety easing off, there suddenly was something else in his eyes, something besides misery. "You were saying?"

Thor debated with himself whether he could really do this to the other man—to all of them, really—but they had been huddled together at the Avengers facility for weeks without any progress. Thanos was untraceable and even if they were able to trace him, they could not defeat him. The entire world was numb with shock. Half of its population was gone, dusted, newborn babies turned to ashes in their mothers' arms; wiped from existence by a single snap of an extraterrestrial's fingers. The remaining half had lost their faith in the Avengers. Worse still, some were even casting the blame on them and who could blame _them_ for it? Thor knew he himself might have prevented the snap if only he had tried a little harder. Not on the battlefield of Wakanda but much earlier. If he had not written Loki off as easily as he had after his decent into madness, if he had maybe visited him in the dungeons, taking actual interest in his brother's motivations, Thor might have learned that Thanos had tormented and brainwashed him. And if he had come to know this then, he would have been able to forgive his brother a lot sooner and Loki would not have staged his own death and exiled Odin to Midgard where he wasted away weakened by grief. Odin, and maybe even Frigga, would have been alive to defend Asgard and the rest of the Nine Realms against Thanos. The people who had been vaporized by the Infinity Gauntlet would still live today if he had not passed over Loki's accusation that Thor had tossed him into an abyss when in reality he had let go; if he had asked him what in the name of the Norns he was talking about instead.

"Thor!"

"Yeah," Thor mumbled. "I'm sorry. Okay." He breathed out sharply. "I know you will think me mad for this but believe me when I say I am not suggesting any of the following lightly. I have actually given this a great deal of thought."

"Oh, I doubt that," Tony sneered.

"Why? You haven't even heard me out."

"Because if you _had_ given it a great deal of thought, there is no way you would have arrived at the conclusion that bringing your brother back from the dead is a legitimate course of action."

Thor suppressed the smile that wanted to come. "Let me explain, Tony," he repeated.

"One more thing. Don't you think the others should have a say in this matter, too?"

Thor's lips parted slightly and Tony's eyes narrowed when the implication behind Thor's facial play registered with him. "Wait, do _I_ have a say in this matter at all?" He laughed grimly. "You're not asking for my permission, do you?"

Thor gave an apologetic shrug. "I'm asking for your opinion."

"My opinion," Tony snorted. "I give zero fucks about your brother. He can rot in hell for all I care."

"I know you think that and you have every right to do so but please, hear me out," Thor pleaded. When Tony finally signaled his agreement, Thor presented a condensed version of everything he had discussed with Valkyrie only hours before.

A simple "no" was all Tony offered in response.

"What do you mean 'no'?" Thor asked. "He could be our gateway to Thanos and don't you tell me that you don't want your revenge."

"Of course I do!" Tony yelled. "Don't be ridiculous. But your brother is an unknown quantity and we can't afford any more of those. In case you forgot, your brother is _insane_ , Thor. Nobody would know where his allegiances lay and in a situation like this …" His voice trailed off.

"But he might be able to help us!"

"He might be," Tony conceded, "but none us could ever be sure that he would actually be on our side and I am done with uncertainties. If we want to turn the tables on Thanos, we need a stable team."

"A stable team?" Thor snorted. "You haven't slept in weeks, Stark. You are no more than a walking corpse. Bruce still can't turn into the Hulk. Steve is a devastated shadow of his former self and I have this pain inside my chest that will eat me alive if I do not make a move against Thanos soon. We have all suffered unimaginable losses and they have crippled the Avengers we used to be. We cannot defeat him as we are now and you know that as well as I do."

"But think about how insane this is," Tony persisted. "If you really think that Loki can lead us to Thanos, think again, because that actually means that Loki could also lead Thanos to _us_." He paused at that, his eyebrows drawing together as he mulled it over. "Nope, it's still insane. We have no army, we have nothing, and if we risk Thanos coming to Earth again, we will lose. _Again_. We can't afford that. Humanity can't afford that."

Thor breathed out. "You might be correct but what other chances do we have? The best-case scenario is that we get a glimpse into Thanos' mind and can use this to fight against him as a team."

"The worst-case scenario is that he gets a glimpse into Loki's mind first and declares war on us again," Tony countered, his breathing accelerating once more. "Another worst-case scenario is that Loki betrays us and uses his mental connection with Thanos, if there is one, to hand us to him on a silver platter, so that this shitbag can murder all of us. Another worst-case scenario is that he stabs you before you even have a chance to open your mouth. You see, there are a hell of a lot of worst-case scenarios here."

"But if I could get Loki to—"

"That's one giant fucking 'if'," Tony cut in, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths as he spoke. "We can't handle him, Thor."

"I think I can handle him."

Tony offered him a desperate smile, a film of sweat glistening on his upper lip. "Since when?"

 _Since last night_ , Thor thought but since he could hardly confess to that, he decided to switch gears. "I agree that there are lot of uncertainties but the uncertainties are there already, no matter what we do. Thanos could decide at any given moment that we are still a threat to him. What if he comes back here to eliminate us tomorrow? What if the effect of the Infinity Gauntlet could be reversed but only for a limited timespan? What if this timespan is already over and we have already lost our chance?" He saw Tony wince at that but pressed ahead nonetheless. "But what if we actually had a chance against Thanos when we are all together in one place and not scattered across the universe like we were during his last attack? What if Loki actually _was_ on our side? He can be a very good fighter if he chooses to be and he is a god, which means we would have two gods instead of one this time and this can only be an advantage."

Tony thought this over, forming a triangle of his thumbs and index fingers and pressing it onto his face. "As far as I can see, there's nothing in it for Loki. What makes you so sure that he will actually help you, let alone _us_ , to undo the snap and save the universe?"

"Because I figured out how to help him first," Thor replied, hoping that he sounded more determined and more trustworthy than he felt. "I swear to you I can bring him around."

"First of all, you actually have to bring him back though," Tony pointed out, hinting at the true unknown quantity in Thor's plan. "I mean, can you actually do that? Bring people back from the dead? Are you _that_ powerful?"

"We will see. And if I can't, well, nothing would change." The mere thought of things continuing in the way they had for the past weeks made the pain in Thor's chest near unbearable. He could not go back to all that pain, all that guilt, all that powerlessness but least of all he could go back to missing Loki dreadfully each day. Of course, he could not entrust Tony Stark with that particular motivation. He was not even sure Valkyrie would understand.

"Alright," Tony finally conceded. "You have my blessing to look for him but don't you dare bring him back anywhere near here unless you are at least hundred and ten percent sure he is sane enough to not want to kill any of us."

* * *

Valkyrie kept watching him intently, her legs tucked under her feet on the bed, as Thor was cramming Midgardian clothes into a large bag. "What do you need all these clothes for? How long are you planning to stay away?"

"As long as I have to," Thor replied, thinking through the many worst-case scenarios that his endeavor might entail. For all he knew, Loki could be entirely out of his mind when he came face to face with him, filled up to bursting with delusions of grandeur and murderous revenge fantasies. He might have been stripped of his powers and his magic. He might not remember him at all. He might try to kill him. He might try to kill himself. Thor did not know which Loki would await him, if there would be one at all. Maybe this had been a dream after all and he was every bit as insane as his brother was before he'd died.

"I really think I should come with you," Valkyrie said, for the seventh time. She had already delivered a lecture about the unsoundness of Loki's mind and its immanent dangers to him, insisting that he would be safer and that she would feel better if he did not face him alone.

"No, you shouldn't," Thor told her for the seventh time.

"Do you think he won't approve?"

Thor laughed in response. "Val, whether he approves of you or not is the last thing on my mind, believe me."

"That lie wasn't even so bad," she mocked him.

"It might not be the _last_ thing on my mind," Thor relented, "but it has a very low priority right now." He grabbed a watch and a wad of dollar notes from the chest of drawers. "You said it yourself, our relationship is … was complicated and—"

"I said it was toxic, not complicated."

"Alright, it is toxic, and we need to figure it out before I can bring him back here and I really don't see how anyone else being there might be of any help." Thor closed his eyes and drew his eyebrows together before he continued. "I need to do this alone, Val," he insisted and cupped her chin with his fingers. "I will be careful, I promise."

She brushed a soft kiss against his thumb. "This is by far the dumbest thing you will ever do."

"You are probably right," Thor agreed and kissed her gently. "Wish me luck."

She managed a thin smile as he reached for the Stormbreaker. "Good luck, your majesty. You will need it."

When he left the room and Valkyrie's soothing presence, he dimly remembered a scene that had been playing on the TV in Jane Foster's apartment a long time ago, a scene of men and women walking to the gallows with their ankles and wrists in chains and dramatic music amplifying the somber mood. He tried to ignore the emotional impact of the memory as he walked through the kitchen, grabbing water bottles from the fridge and a handful of energy bars from the counter. _It might be nothing_ , a voice inside his head whispered softly. _He might not even come back._ Yet Thor knew in his heart that he would and so he stuffed the provisions in the bag, zipped it close and walked outside with that piece of dramatic music still playing in his ear. He let out one last breath and summoned the Bifrost.

* * *

 _Notes:_  
 _I'm still not over Tony's pain that was radiating off the screen at the end of in Infinity War and I don't think this chapter does justice to it but I tried my best. I'm still figuring out what to do with Pepper, since it was now apparently confirmed that she survived the snap (as I prayed she would), but I'm also sure she's approximately 10000000000% done with worrying over Tony every time a new extraterrestrial threat looms on the horizon, so I really don't know yet. But it's gonna be some chapters before the story switches back to the Avengers, so there is still time. Suggestions are also welcome._


	6. Do we have a deal, brother?

#6

The Bifrost released him near the gates of the kingdom of the dead that sat in the East of Niflheim, the frozen underworld that was located on the lowest level of the universe where all dishonored non-Asgardian residents of the Nine Realms traveled after their death. The land was cheerless, covered with icy rime and clouded by a chilly mist. Thor gazed around, shivering against the cold fingers of the wind. Crooked ugly obelisks of stone and ice rose up to either side of him. Behind him, he faintly heard water splashing against a shore. Apart from that, the air was eerily silent. It truly was a nornforsaken place and the thought of his little brother having been imprisoned in this wasteland for over a month now made Thor furious. He'd expected Loki to travel to Valhalla after he had died an honorable death by battling first Hela and then Thanos but, apparently, Loki's spirit now dwelled in the realm of the dishonored dead. It was not entirely undeserved, Thor had to admit, particularly since he was not born of Asgard, but it still infuriated him. He stood fuming for another moment, and then walked into the direction away from the water.

"Loki?" He felt stupid shouting at the icy rock formations but he would not turn back until he had tried. "Loki!" His booming cry echoed through the air but quickly faded away as the frozen underworld swallowed up all sounds except for its own water's rippling. "Loki! If you can hear me, give me a sign. I am here now! Loki!" He walked deeper into the mist, shouting his brother's name every time he paused to survey his surroundings. "Loki!"

Thor treaded forward until, at last, he reached a giant fortress made of stone with two massive black doors that had a small head with eight separate jagged antler pieces printed upon it in dark green. He had reached the gates of Hel. The hairs on his arms and neck began to tingle. He tightened his grip around his axe, every muscle in his body tensing with anticipation.

"Hela!" Thor shouted as he rattled at the single brass ring mounted to the doors. He wasn't entirely sure if Hela would be the one answering to him after he had killed her by having Loki unleash Surtur upon Asgard but as she had been queen of the dead, he figured she might be. And if she wasn't, he would fight whoever ruled over the dead now to get his brother back. The echo of his hammering was quickly swallowed up by the eerie silence.

Thor wielded Stormbreaker and assaulted the doors but they stood firm. "Loki!" Thor shouted and assaulted the doors over and over again, dealing blow after blow while shouting his siblings' names by turns. "I will not leave without Loki, do you hear me? I will _not_ leave this place without my brother!" The cold was beginning to sting his eyeballs. His fingers were growing numb. He summoned a flash of lightning that rocked through his body and warmed him against the icy wind. "Do you hear me? I will _not_ leave!"

He summoned another lightning blast and hurled it against the doors but it ricocheted off them without leaving as much as a scratch. _Your powers are of no use in the realm of the dead_ , Thor thought grimly but he was not yet ready to relinquish hope. He spun Stormbreaker the way he used to spin Mjölnir and it pulled him off the ground onto the roof of the fortress. He summoned lighting and thunder and thrust the sizzling axe into the stone. The weapon left only a tiny crack but a tiny crack was more than he had achieved down by the doors, so he continued the exercise and deepened the crack with blow after blow until it finally burst open and granted him access into the kingdom of Hel.

Thor slipped through the roof and landed in a tremendous hallway lined with pillars of stone that led towards a faintly glimmering green light. The echo of his boots bounced against the walls and thudded across the carven stone. He hurried toward the light and reached the throne room he had seen depicted in his father's books countless times. As everything else, the throne was made of cold naked stone and it sat in the middle of a large hall. Left and right of it, the wicked dead were imprisoned in light green glass coffins, snickering sharply. But the throne itself was empty.

"Loki?" Thor shouted. "Where are you, brother? I've come to take you home!" He swirled around but he did not recognize Loki among the deceased. "What is happening?" Thor whispered under his breath. "Where is he? Where is Hela? _Hela_!"

Suddenly, he sensed a surge of energy in the air. Another few seconds ticked by before a black portal opened next to the throne. Hela lunged out and leaped toward him, surrounded by an almost tangible aura of narcissism. The portal behind her closed immediately and began to shrink up as she sprawled out her fingers mid-jump, drawing its energy toward them. It disappeared into her palm and she closed her fist around it as she landed in front of him, glowering. " _How_ did you get in here?"

"Well, I guess, I am the strongest Avenger after all," Thor offered with a smirk.

"You cannot enter the kingdom of the dead so long as your body still lives," Hela hissed. "You cannot get in here."

"I just did, didn't I?" Thor flashed her a sheepish grin. "So, where is Loki?"

"Big brother coming to the rescue, or what?" She gave a silvery-sweet-but-devilish laugh. "That is precious. Although he is not really your brother, is he? Makes you wonder what else Odin has kept from you, doesn't it?"

Words and thoughts failed Thor for a moment as his mind arrowed back to the moment of Loki telling him that he was not and had never been his brother. Hela snorted another laugh. "Look at the God of Thunder being completely thunderstruck. I love the irony of that. And I'm actually glad you came, darling brother. It wouldn't be entirely fair if Loki received all the punishment for Asgard's destruction alone, would it?"

Thor narrowed his eyes at her. "Asgard wasn't yours to rule. So, where _is_ he?"

Hela just smiled at him. "It was never yours to rule either."

" _Where_ is he?" Thor repeated as he tried to clear his mind off the thoughts that were waiting to assail it and that he could not afford to dwell on lest he wanted to succumb to the same numbing rage that had blinded him against Thanos on the battlefield of Wakanda. "Tell me!"

Hela relented and opened her palm, revealing a gleaming black gem about one inch in size. She let it roll onto her fingers, captured it between her thumb and middle finger and presented it to him. "In here."

Shock rooted Thor to the spot as he recognized the shape and texture of the gem. "That is not possible," he stammered. "It can't be." He marveled briefly when his life had become so intricate that things never stopped complicating.

Hela chuckled. "You said those words to me before, remember?"

"Do you actually know what this is?" Thor asked carefully, clutching at the hope that she did not possess any knowledge about the Infinity Stones and their destructive abilities because if she did, his entire quest had just gotten indefinitely more complicated. Neither of the Avengers was prepared for yet another player with questionable allegiances in the war against Thanos.

"A very powerful piece of jewelry." She gave a shrug.

"Where did you find it?" Thor proceeded, trying for as casual a tone as possible.

Hela narrowed her eyes as she inspected the gem with rising curiosity, looking at it as if she was seeing it for the first time. Then, she swiftly concealed it with her dark magic. "Not your concern, darling brother."

Thor admonished himself for sparking her interest in the stone by implying he knew that its origin might be of any significance. He decided to alter his course and feign simplemindedness. "But how did Loki … How did he end up in there?"

"You very well know how, since you were there," Hela murmured softly, "choking on your own blood because you couldn't scream as you watched him die. That must have been painful."

Thor tried to brush aside the disturbing realization that Hela had been inside Loki's head, gaining access to his memories. "But this is a _stone_ , a tiny stone. How could a stone that small possibly host bodies? You do not really expect me to believe that, do you?"

The condescending glance she shot him evidenced that he was still good at the technique he had mastered long ago when he had discovered that Loki thought himself smarter than him and it had given him immense pleasure to live up to the impression while secretly deriding Loki for believing it.

"You did see what I did only moments ago, did you not?" Hela asked, her intonation rising as if she was speaking to a dense child. "You did see me stepping out of it, so surely you cannot be incapable of wrapping your head around the idea that it hosts a larger realm?"

"And what kind of realm would that be?"

"I am the Goddess of _Death_! What kind of realm do you think it is?"

Thor did not have to feign ignorance in response to this. Hela had a pact with death that allowed her to claim the souls of any dishonored mortal worshipper of the Asgardian Gods as well as those Asgardians who did not travel to Valhalla and take them to Niflheim and apparently, neither her banishment nor her defeat by Surtur had ended her rule over the dead. The kingdom of Hel was still under her command. The only question was how she had come across an Infinity Stone that appeared to contain its own realm of the dead. How could there be another Infinity Stone at all? And whose souls traveled to it? Those who had died at the hands of the other stones, as Valkyrie had hypothesized earlier? Or had Hela somehow used the power of the stone to create a new Hel in order to collect the souls that _she_ wanted? And if that was the case, why did this include Loki's soul? And if it wasn't the case, then who was in control of this stone and how was it connected to the other stones? Thor felt a throbbing headache approach as the questions continued to pile up in his mind. He would have to address these questions later. For now, the only thing he could do—and needed to do—was to focus on why he had come here. "Truth be told, I do not care. I just need Loki back."

Hela laughed in his face. "Odin raised an imbecile and a madman."

"His parenting skills are worthy of discussion, yes, but I am serious." Thor tightened his grip around Stormbreaker. "I need him back."

"And what are you going to do? Challenge me to battle?" She took a step towards him, cutting the space between them. "Don't you remember how that turned out last time?"

"I have grown stronger since then," Thor replied as he wielded his axe. "I managed to break through the barrier of your kingdom, remember?" He hit her with a blast of crackling blue lightning that made her stagger slightly under the impact, surprise flashing across her face. "This is not bad," she acknowledged as she conjured up a giant black sword with a shiny golden blade. She held it in front of her face, the blade perfectly leveled with her nose. "Let's see just how much stronger you have become."

Thor sprang forward and the estranged siblings entered a sustained hand-to-hand or rather axe-to-sword combat, fighting each other as equals as they took swing after swing at one another. The rattling of their weapons was clattering through the halls of Hel as they circled one another like predators in the wild, swiftly and mercilessly. His arms were beginning to feel heavier and heavier after some time, his blood seemingly turning to lead in his veins, and finally Thor realized that he would not defeat her in close combat. He withdrew a few steps, keeping the safe distance of an inch between Stormbreaker and the point of her sword. Hela let out a breath. "Are you giving up?"

Thor smiled, keeping his distance. "What do you think?" He tapped the end of her sword with his axe. Hela lunged out, swinging her sword to deflect Stormbreaker, but she was a little too far away and not fast enough. He dropped under her blade, conjured up a blast of lightning and hurled the crackling axe into her right side. This time, her knees buckled under the impact. Thor sprang forward, rammed his boot into her throat and pinned her to the ground. "This won't get us anywhere," he panted as he towered over her.

"He is _dead_ ," Hela insisted breathlessly, her fingers closing around his ankle. He increased the pressure. "What makes you think you _can_ have him back even if I wanted to release him?"

Thor realized that he had not thought this true to the extent that he should have but he would be damned if he let it show. "You are the Goddess of Death, are you not? I am sure you'll find a way to release him." _Unless you are not in control of the souls in the stone. Because the Infinity Stones have a conscience and a will of their own._

Her eyes flickered. "Why is he so important to you?"

"Why is he so important to _you_?" Thor asked back and suddenly, his subconscious shifted the helm on its own account. "I mean, seriously, his wretched soul can't be of much use to you."

The pressure of Thor's boots stifled the laugh that wanted to come. He eased his hold a little. "You have no idea how valuable his soul is to me," Hela whispered.

"That's right, I don't. Why don't you tell me?"

"It is so wonderfully full of agony and I just happen to have an insatiable appetite for agony and pain." Her features lit up with madness. It seemed to fuel her. She squirmed free and sprang to her feet. "He is nurturing me, fueling my dark magic. I will not let him go and _you_ will leave my kingdom now!" Another blade materialized in her palm as she prepared for another round.

And just like that, Thor's subconscious mind revealed a very plausible course of action to him. "What if I could, say, borrow him for some time?"

"Borrow him?" Hela echoed incredulously, lowering her sword.

Thor gave a nod. "As you might have come to know, Loki left behind quite a mess and there are lot of people who have some unfinished business with him. If you give him back to me for a few months, I promise you can have his soul back."

"A few _months_? That is out of the question."

"Two months," Thor relented, feeling a wave of guilt rise up in him as he continued. "And I promise you that he will return even more damaged because all of these people hate him and I guarantee you it will fuel his agony."

Hela narrowed her eyes, not quite trusting him. "Is that why you came all this way? Why would you want to do that to him?"

Thor willed himself to pull through. "Why wouldn't I? He betrayed me, threatened to kill the people that I love, attempted to murder me countless times; he actually hates me."

"He hates you _so_ much," Hela agreed. "And at the same time he loves you so much, it's destructive and tragic and beautifully poetic."

Even though her words physically sickened him as much as his own, Thor continued. "I've got quite the hold over him, I know. I also know how to use it against him. Let me have him for two months to clean up all the messes and I promise you, I will return him to you even more … deranged."

"One month," Hela decided.

"Alright, one month." This was not nearly as much time as he had hoped for but if it were all she was willing to give him, it would have to suffice. "So how—"

"Upon one condition," she cut him off. "Well, two conditions, really. First of all, if I release him from death now, _you_ will be the one to bring him back to me as soon as the month has passed." She paused for effect. "You will kill him. The last thought passing through his conscious mind will be the realization that he finally antagonized his oh so precious brother enough to spark off a murderous intent in him. He will die knowing he'd been right about being a monster all along."

Thor felt his stomach coil at the mere thought. Hela smiled her sweetly evil smile when she saw the disgust flicker across his face. "You think you can fool me, oh mighty Thor?" She hissed a laugh. "If you fail to kill him in time, if I have to return to retrieve him from the world of the living, I will claim your own soul and it will forever belong to me."

Thor opened his mouth to speak but she was not yet finished. "I will also, randomly, claim the soul of one of your mortal friends—perhaps Steve Rogers or Tony Stark?"

Thor's entire throat went dry. He tried to swallow.

Hela gave another laugh. "Do we have a deal, _brother_?"

He gave a hesitant nod, even though he could not see how he would carry it off. _This isn't gonna end well_ , Thor thought, the voices of Tony and Valkyrie echoing in his ears. _Think about how insane this is. That is one giant fucking 'if'. This is by far the dumbest thing you will ever do._ It surely was. It was the dumbest, the most reckless and the most selfish thing he had ever agreed to.

"Wait here," Hela instructed, opened the portal and stepped through it, leaving it open as if—contrary to her command—she wanted him to follow but when he tried to do so, the energy barrier hurled him back, scorching his skin.

Thor cursed and then waited. His heart was swelling up in his chest when it dawned on him just how much pressure he had put upon himself. One month was not nearly enough to treat even the most superficial wounds the past had inflicted upon him and Loki but, at the same time, Thor knew that this would be his last chance to heal them. He had lost everything else, he and Loki both, and this time he had to succeed; otherwise they would both be miserable for all eternities. Simultaneously, he would have to figure out a plan how to get out of his deal with Hela— _I can't believe you gambled with the souls of your friends for the one person that you could never fully trust_ —and how to retrieve the Infinity Stone from her before the month was over and she would reclaim Loki. And if that was done, he would have to convince Loki to help the Avengers in their act of revenge against Thanos. On closer inspection, he realized that all of this would require a lot of time, effort and patience; and unfortunately, he was not in possession of any of those. How could he have believed even for a second that he would be able to defeat Hela _and_ Thanos, and thus save the universe _and_ his brother at the same time?

Yet surrender was not and had never been in his nature. Surrender would never be an option for the God of Thunder. He would try and if he tried hard enough, he would succeed. Yes, he would. He believed this until Hela hurled Loki out of the stone's death dimension a few moments later, throwing him at his feet just as Thanos had done after he had choked the life out of his brother with the power stone.

* * *

 _Author's note:_

 _\- Wow, I had a lot of fun writing this; even though I actually hate writing fight scenes because I have never wielded a sword or an axe before and never quite know what people actually do or think when they battle each other (lmao). But I had a lot of fun with Hela and Thor in this chapter, especially during the re-write._  
 _\- And to answer Tony's question from the last chapter, yes, Thor is **that** powerful. He can single-handedly break his way into Hel. He is a God, duh._  
 _\- And last but not least, yay to the 7th Infinity Stone. Isn't that gonna make everything more complex, you ask? Probably, but I'm very up for the challenge. I will also give you a little teaser: What Loki remembered in the first two chapters isn't all there is to remember about how he died and what he actually did before he died and why he did it._  
 _\- That said, stay tuned, and thanks to everyone who is already following. Your support is much appreciated xx_


	7. Right here by my side

#7

Before Thor could clothe any thought in words, Hela released a blast of energy so fierce it catapulted them both out of the halls of Hel and onto the frozen lands outside her kingdom as the portal was closing in on itself behind her. The blast hurled them across the ice and sent him rolling over a few times. When Thor finally scrambled to his knees, Loki was lying flat on his stomach, his arms and legs sprawled out. He was almost naked except for a pair of undergarments and the remnants of the black-green leather suit he had worn when he died, which were clinging to his skin in single tatters as if the rest of the garment had been burned away. Every rib was visible under his sapphire blue skin, which looked as if someone had stretched it across his bones like a thin canvas. His raven-black hair had grown even longer, and was flowing down to the bottom tip of his scapula in unruly waves. Thor sat rooted to the spot, paralyzed with incredulity. _No, this can't be. He is … This is not …_ Seconds, or even minutes, crawled by, the faint sound of water splashing against the shore the only noise in the deathly stillness, before Loki slowly propped up his elbows and lifted his head, his eyes frantically searching the frozen plains of Niflheim. _Oh God, those eyes._ They were red and huge and cold like the eyes of a dead man but somehow still alive with madness.

"Loki …" Thor was almost choking on the name. He struggled against his emotional paralysis and crawled toward his brother. Loki stared at him with those wild red eyes, drinking in the icy air. Thor put both hands on his shoulders, feeling sharp, gelid bones under his fingers. "It's me, brother, it's Thor."

Loki blinked. Thor could hear his brother's lungs rattling back to life in his chest.

"It's alright!" Thor almost yelled in an attempt to drown out his own fear. "I am here now, Loki. It's gonna be okay."

Loki inhaled deeply, recognition slowly setting in. "You fool," he whispered in a faint voice, his words interrupted by heavy breaths. "I would've … been … drained soon …"

"Drained? What does that mean?"

Loki merely stared at him with a vacant expression and greedily gulped in the air, filling his depleted body with new life. Moments passed between them in an almost menacing silence. "Why?" Loki finally asked and cast him a look of reproach.

Thor was nonplussed. "What do you mean, why?"

"Why did you bring me back?" Loki's tone was almost hostile now although his expression remained mostly blank. Thor let go of his brother, his palm numbed by the cold of Loki's skin, and scrambled backwards on his knees, putting some space between them.

"You called for me," Thor clarified. "You called to me for _help_."

A weak half-laugh escaped his brother's lips. "I almost certainly did not."

"Yes, you did." The exchange between them made Thor recall that fateful, long past conversation. _I remember a shadow, living in the shade of your greatness. I remember you tossing me into an abyss._ Loki's memories had been twisted before and they were twisted again now. Hela had forced her entry into his mind, tainting it with her black magic. Once again, he had come out of a mess he had catapulted himself into a little more insane and Thor knew that arguing about it would was all but pointless. "Never mind," Thor mumbled, disheartened in the face of the realization that they were back to square one and that he would most likely not be able to live up to the promise he had made to Tony Stark . "The only thing that matters is that you are alive again." _For now._

Although Thor had tried to steel himself for the impact of the possibility that his brother had wanted Thanos to kill him, Loki's next words shook him to the core. "That was not your decision to make." His red eyes narrowed. "So, at least tell me why."

"Because you _died_ ," Thor tried. " _Again_. And I missed you."

"No, you didn't," Loki whispered.

"Yes, I did."

Loki shook his head in slow motion. "There has to be more."

"Yes, there is more," Thor admitted after a pause, kneading his tingling fingers. "We might need your help but I would have brought you back even if that wasn't the case because, in the first place, I really _did_ miss you."

"Who is we?" Loki asked but the answer came to him soon enough. "No," he gasped, his words tumbling over themselves and crashing against each other. "Thanos … how is … did they … are they safe … Valkyrie and Bruce and …"

"They both are."

A silence crept over them and for a moment, neither of them spoke. "You defeated him, didn't you, brother?" Loki finally asked, his voice jittery with dread. "Thanos?"

Thor shook his head. "That's why—"

Loki sprang to his feet like a scalded cat, almost jabbing his finger in Thor's face. "You don't get to do this to me!" His breathing was heavy, his black curls falling into his red eyes, those red eyes that were gleaming out of his deep blue face. His brother's Jotun appearance, which had not registered fully with Thor until that moment, stirred up unwanted feelings of distrust and hatred inside him. _No, we can do this. It is not too late. This is still your brother. Nothing has changed._

"Do what, Loki?" Thor asked, carefully holding up his hands as if to make a peace offering.

"Leave me alone!" Loki hissed before he turned and started running astonishingly quickly for someone who had just been thrown out of Hel.

Thor took after him, chiding himself for kicking down his brother's front door instead of knocking gently and asking for admittance. "Where are you going?"

"Away from you!"

"And where to?" Thor yelled, followed by another thing he deeply regretted as soon as it had left his mouth and faded away into the air. "You are naked and … blue. You have nowhere to go."

Loki stopped dead in his tracks. He turned halfway, the jawline of his profile as sharp as the edges of a rough diamond. "There is one place," he whispered.

"No, Loki!" Thor shouted and grabbed his brother by the wrist, once more surprised by its coldness against his fingers.

His brother winced at these words. For a moment, Thor just stood there, holding on to Loki's icy blue arm, his palms burning up again, not knowing what to do or what to say. He feared for his brother's sanity as well as his own. They had only been together for a few minutes and already they were bringing out the worst in each other as they had done so many times in the past. Yes, their relationship was toxic and would probably remain so for a long time. Yes, bringing Loki back had probably been an idea of tremendous stupidity. Yet they were here now and Thor was determined to make it work as he realized with a sudden almost blinding clarity that he could not live without him. Therefore, he did the only thing that he thought his brother might appreciate. "Perhaps we can come to an arrangement." Thor felt bad as he saw Loki frown at the words and even worse as he continued but he forced himself to carry on. "I have many things to apologize for and I cannot let you go before I have not tried to make them up to you. Give me four weeks, Loki. If you still want to go back in four weeks, fine, but if you give me a chance I promise you I will make you not want to go back."

 _Yeah, right._

Loki stared at him in utter confusion.

"Please," Thor mumbled, willing himself to continue. "I may have brought you back against your will but let me show you that your place is right here by my side because I believe that. I really do."

"Who _are_ you?" Loki asked eventually, a look of distrust and fear stamped across his face.

"I am your brother," Thor said firmly. "Please, Loki. Use this chance."

Loki's red eyes flickered challengingly. "Chance for what, exactly?"

Thor felt his body grow stiff with the fear of giving the wrong answer. Talking to his brother had always been like stumbling across a minefield but never had the right answer mattered more than in this moment. Redemption? _No, this is too unrealistic_. Love? _God, that sounds trashy_. Acceptance? _That might work._ He decided on, "Belonging."

Loki's gaze traveled to his blue arm still locked inside Thor's fingers. "Belonging, huh."

Thor squeezed his brother's wrist for emphasis. "Yes, belonging. I don't know why you think so little of yourself"— _actually I do but we cannot afford to go there now_ —"but to me, you are my brother and nothing is ever going to change that." At least, that much was true. Nothing would ever change the fact that he loved his little brother and that he'd just offered his own soul and that of one of his friends just so that Loki could live for another four weeks.

Loki seemed to think it over. "Four weeks," he finally agreed and then created an illusion of one of his signature green-black garments that enveloped his emaciated frame, concealing his true state of being as his illusions had done so many times before. What the illusion did not conceal, however, was the color of his skin. "But I am not going to face the Avengers," Loki added.

Thor gave a nod. "Deal." He felt a pang of conscience at this empty promise but there was no other way. He could not decide between his love for Loki and his duty as an Avenger and he was sure he could do them both justice if only he had a moment to think. It was all going to be okay. They would figure it out. Besides, Loki had broken just enough of his own promises over the years that he could persuade himself it was not too terrible.

"And where will you take me?" Loki asked, a hint of curiosity in his voice betraying the look of indifference stamped across his face.

That was a very good question. _Don't you dare bringing him back anywhere near us unless you are at least one hundred and ten percent sure he is sane enough to not want to kill any of us_ , Tony Stark had told him and he didn't mean to. He needed time to talk to Loki in order to convince him that he had come to understand his brother's emotional struggles—even if that wasn't entirely true—and that he would help him fight his demons; one of which happened to be Thanos. He also knew he would have to start by jolting Loki out of the emotional defense he'd started rebuilding the moment he'd been released and there was only one place in all of the Nine Realms he could think of that might help him do just that.

"You will see," Thor said, swung Stormbreaker and summoned the Bifrost for a gateway out of the land of the dead.

* * *

A thousand thoughts whirled through Loki's head but he caught hold of only a few as he watched the rainbow bridge fly past the edge of his vision in a blur. _Since when can Thor summon the Bifrost all by himself? What is this new weapon? How did he get into Hel?_ Then, the only thought that truly mattered: _You always knew he would come_. Loki looked up at his brother, who looked different somehow as he held his new hammer that looked more like an axe than an actual hammer raised above his head. The expression on his face was determined, his jaw set, and Loki knew immediately that Thor was taking him back to Midgard. _Where else would he take you? There is no place else, you oaf._

They landed in the midst of a forest with trees towering around them in all shades of luscious green. The sunlight was spilling through their leaves, touching the ground in a magnificent play of colors. Birds were chirping. It was almost peaceful.

"That is strange," Thor mumbled and while Loki heard the words, their meaning was lost to him.

Thor started walking, still mumbling to himself, and Loki trailed after him in a daze as his mind, still slow and smudgy, was groping for something—anything—that would anchor him to the world of the living. His feet did not seem to touch the ground even though he heard leaves and twigs crackle under his boots as he walked. His vision was still blurry at the edges. He stared at Thor's back as his feet seemingly moved by themselves. The most dizzying thing was, however, that Thor did not seem to be Thor at all but an illusion that looked like him to some extent but did not think and much less talked like him. _Why would he come, anyway? Surely, this must be a trap._ He remembered Hela's touch of death on his skin only moments before, and the pain she had caused him by greedily sucking on his memories, as if she had physically reached into his brain and yanked out nerve after nerve. Then, suddenly, her eyes had widened. "Oh, little Laufeyson's got a visitor."

He had been far too befuddled too understand. _A visitor?_

"Your big brother is here," she had whispered into his ear. "Shall we let him in?"

Incomprehension, then recognition, then nothing but sheer panic. _Noooooo_! _Don't come here, please, leave me here, I deserve this, don't come here, it will be over soon, I will be drained soon, no, please, please help me, it hurts so much, please help me, no, stay away, please, just don't, it will be over soon, don't come here, please help me._

She had disappeared for a while but then she had come back, grabbed him by the neck and flung him away like a garment and before he even knew it, Thor was kneeling in front of him, his big, warm, meaty hands on his shoulders.

This disconcerting version of Thor that was familiarly insensitive—only Thor could tell you that you had nowhere to go only minutes after trying to persuade you that he had missed you and somehow truly mean both of these things—but at the same time unfamiliarly caring. Never before had he said that Loki belonged by his side. He had insisted several times that they had grown up together, implying that he missed the person his brother used to be, but he had never before said that he missed the person Loki had become. He had said it now and suddenly, Thanos, Hela, the Avengers, the destruction of the Nine Realms, death and everything else no longer mattered. At least for as long as it took them to reach the edge of the forest.

 _This is a ploy_ , Loki thought, his blurred mind finally sharpening just as Thor shoved aside the branches of a bush to clear the way. _This cannot truly be happening_. _The accursed Avengers are tricking me. I need to get out._

The bright sunlight almost sliced Loki's eyeballs in half when he stepped out of the shadows of the trees. He tried to close his eyes against it. It was incredibly hot, too, the air humid and almost heavy, gluing onto his closed lids like spider webs.

"We're here," Thor announced.

Loki swayed under the sweltering, pressing force of the sun and took a few clumsy steps back into the shade. "Where exactly is here?" Loki asked and carefully opened one eye, squinting against the light, but closed it again.

"Is something wrong with your eyes, brother?" Thor asked.

"No, it's just … hot," Loki groaned and sank to his knees as his body was slowly, but inevitably, giving in to the strain of Hela's torture, the excruciating trip through space and the seemingly limitless power of the sun.

"It is not that h—" Thor started but then he seemed to remember something. "Holy shit, you're a Frost Giant. Is it … does it hurt?"

His brother's words hit him like a war club. "No," Loki hissed. His skin did prick a little, yes, but he knew better than to admit as much. Like himself, Thor had grown up in the belief that the Jotuns were a lesser race and he would not do his brother the favor of acknowledging that a little sunlight was afflicting him when it should not have bothered him at all. Midgard was a place of mostly moderate climate and he had seen other Jotuns move around freely and unhindered in such a climate before. There was no reason at all for him to react so strongly to it. Yes, he had been dismayed, if not entirely surprised, to discover that his Jotun appearance had not changed back after Hela had released him but he had not expected that his Jotun body would fail him at the very first opportunity.

"That's good, I guess," Thor mumbled.

"Yeah," Loki agreed although nothing was _good._ His body was not functioning the way it had for over a millennium. Thanos was still alive. The Avengers had failed to defeat him. The titan was still out there and, in all likelihood, he was in possession of all six Infinity Stones. Of course, he was. Loki had sensed the outcome as soon as the Infinity Gauntlet had touched his skin. He'd sensed the raw molecular power and the cognitive abilities of the two stones inside of it. They were of ancient origin after all. They communicated with each other and with the rest of the universe. He had known what would most definitely happen the minute Thanos had closed the gauntlet around his neck—and maybe that was part of why he had done it—but he did not dare to seek for confirmation of the events unfolding after his death just yet.

For now, other things were more important, too. First, he needed to figure out Thor's motives. _He lied to you_ , the voice came back. It was always coming back. _You don't believe that he truly missed you, do you? Don't be fatuous. He's using you to get to Thanos._

 _Of course, he is._ The question was how exactly Thor was planning to use him. And why he'd given him exactly four weeks.


	8. Some closure?

#8

Loki could almost feel his brain crackle as he strained his powers of concentration but no solution or possible explanation came to him, and no words could express the frustration that he felt in the face of this intellectual murkiness following Hela's dark magical torture. It was not as bad as it had been when Thanos had finally released him from endless torment to retrieve the Tesseract from Midgard and the portal had spit him out in the middle of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s research facility, his mind entirely blank for a few terrifying moments, but it was still excruciating. His intelligence was his only weapon—well, not his only weapon but definitely his sharpest—and having it smothered yet again was almost unbearable.

He remembered the first time all too well. His thoughts arrowed back to The Other's inhuman voice, which had greeted his first dazed moment of consciousness after he'd drifted through space unconsciously for God knows how long after letting go of Thor's hand. _Hello, Asgardian._

 _I'm not Asgardian. I'm an outcast._

 _An outcast, you say? Well, then, rejoice, for you have had the privilege of being saved by the Great Titan. This is his sanctuary._

Loki felt the mental manhole cover he'd slid over these painful memories shift, as if something on the bottom of the well was rising up and pushing against it from the other side. _No, not now, please_. He feared what would happen to his sanity if he looked into that well again; dreaded the endless abyss of madness he would have to stare into if he did not keep the cover closed. _Think about something else, Loki._

But Thanos had edged his way into Loki's brain. _If you fail to bring me the Tesseract, I will squeeze your worthless life out of your body with my bare hands until there is nothing left inside of you … You may think this is suffering. No, it_ _ **is**_ _salvation. The universal scales tip toward balance because of your sacrifice._

Loki buried his head in his hands and drew in sharp breaths as the cells in his body recalled the pains of the titan's torture with a sudden intensity. No, this was all wrong. He should not be here. He should be dead. He had finally paid his debt. Thor should have stayed away. _Thor, that's good. Think about Thor_ _and the inexplicable ways in which he has changed._ He seemed both softer than before and somehow hardened, which was an impossible combination. And Hela had somehow lifted the spell that neither Odin's death nor Asgard's extinction had been able to lift. She'd taken away his Asgardian appearance, robbing him of the only shield he had ever possessed against his inner demons. And in the end, she'd still let him go. Why? And why did Thor want him back?

 _Holy shit,_ y _ou're a Frost Giant. And maybe, just maybe, Frost Giants are not that smart._

And this maledict, unbearable heat, crushing him down. Loki was sure his body would not be able to take any of this for another minute, let alone an entire month. He might as well turn back immediately. He let out a breath. The dark part snickered. _You have endured so much worse, Loki. Are you seriously going to acknowledge yourself beaten now, just because your Asgardian form is gone? That would only prove them right, all of those damned souls who thought you less because of it. You cannot let them win. You cannot let Thor see._

 _No, you are right, I cannot let him see._

"You need sustenance," Thor's voice came back to him. "Take these."

Reluctantly, Loki opened his eyes. Thor had changed into Midgardian attire, a large bag by his side. He was handing him two bottles of water as well as a handful of what Loki guessed were food items in a brown and yellow wrapping. He unscrewed the water bottle and drank; unaware of how thirsty he had been until the liquid streamed down his parched throat. He emptied both bottles and for the moment, his skin stopped pricking and his thoughts stopped spinning.

"Thank you," he said softly to this alien version of his brother that finally swam into clear focus. Thor's hair was growing back after whoever was responsible for preparing the fighters for the contest of Champions on Sakaar had cut it and it was falling into his forehead in single wisps. But his hair was not the most significant alteration to his physical form since Loki had last seen him. "How did you get your eye back?"

"I got it from a space rabbit who said he was a raccoon," Thor replied. "And he stole it from some other guy when he was locked up in prison."

"Space rabbit," Loki repeated quietly, marveling at just how much his brother had changed in such a brief period of time. "And the axe?"

"After Thanos blew up our ship with the power stone, I traveled to Nivadellir to have it forged by Etri."

"It's Nidavellir, brother," Loki corrected him, slightly irritated. "How come you still not know this?"

Thor shot him a glance that perfectly articulated his fallacious conviction that Loki was only trying to tease him. "It's Nivadellir," he insisted.

"It's not." A flimsy laugh escaped Loki's lips. "It's Nidavellir. From old Norse _Nið_ , meaning 'wane of the moon', and _vellir_ , meaning 'fields'. It's the land of the dark fields, not the land of the field's dark."

"If you say so," Thor replied, ready to brush over the explanation. Loki realized with a curious mixture of exasperation and gratitude that at least a few things about Thor had not changed. He needed to have things his way and he was entirely incapable of admitting to be in the wrong, even concerning a banality such as this.

"Now eat one of these," Thor ordered, took one of the food items, tore open the wrapping with his teeth and peeled half of it away, revealing a brown bar with a smooth-looking surface.

"What is that, exactly?" Loki relented.

"It's an energy bar."

"An _energy_ bar?" Loki echoed.

"Yeah. They call them that because, apparently, there is a lot of energy in them," Thor explained, thrusting the food into his hand. "Like sugar and other ingredients that give your body a lot of energy really fast. Try it. It's good."

"I don't even know who you are anymore," Loki mumbled but still he took a hesitant bite and chewed carefully. He had been wrong. His Asgardian appearance had never been his only shield against his inner demons. Thor was another one and he was right there. He had saved him countless times and he had just done it again. _The question is why exactly._

"I could have said the same thing to you countless times, you know," Thor countered.

"Fair enough," Loki acknowledged after swallowing the first sticky bite. "This is awful."

"We can eat something else later," Thor offered. "Midgardian food is actually pretty awesome."

Loki could only stare as the realization that he had actually agreed to spend a month with his brother was slowly sinking in. And it was not only that. Thor had come prepared. He had brought clothes, food supplies and water. He had planned this out. _But why?_ _ **Why**_ _?_

"I cannot believe any of this is happening," Loki breathed out but after the thought had time to settle, it almost appealed to him. It meant no more drainage and no more pain for a while. Thor had somehow come to an arrangement with Hela in order to liberate him, which meant that he must have become both stronger and smarter, maybe even strong enough to protect him against Thanos should the titan chose to attack again. And if Thor wasn't, Loki would simply go back to the pain a bit sooner. It was as though he had been granted a vacation from Hel with absolutely nothing to gain and nothing to lose and that was the most comforting thought that had ever crossed his mind. For the first time in years, he suddenly felt miraculously and unfamiliarly at peace.

He savored the feeling for a moment before he asked, "So, where are we?"

"Don't you recognize this place?" Thor asked back, motioning his head toward the edge of the forest and whatever lay beyond.

Loki cast his brother a suspicious glance but, refreshed by the water, took a few steps out of the shade anyway. He stepped onto green a grassland that was stretching out until it was curbed by several rock formations that were looming on the horizon, silhouetted against a deep blue sea. His brain needed a moment to give significance to the scenery in front of him but when it finally did, it felt like another punch to the gut.

"Norway?" Loki yelled. "Are you actually serious?"

"I thought it would—"

"And you have the audacity to tell me that _I_ am the worst brother?" Loki cut him off. "What are you trying to accomplish by dragging me back to where Odin met his doom?"

Thor held up his hands in defense. "I'm going to be perfectly honest with you; I didn't _really_ think any of this through."

"Planning things out was never your strong suit," Loki heard himself reply and felt the dark part stir at the weakest sign of emotional attachment to his brother, be it anger, disappointment or affection. When Thor smiled, he added, "But I am expecting an explanation anyway."

"Okay, first of all, I didn't mean it when I said that you were 'the worst brother'," Thor told him. "It was sort of a joke to keep you calm and stop you from panicking, which might not have worked out the way I intended it to, I give you that."

Loki stared at the outlandish version of Thor as the familiar mixture of confusion, fear, discomfort and hatred began to boil in his chest. _Oh please, we were over this. I do not want to hate him anymore. Just go away._

"As for the rest, I don't know where to start, actually," Thor admitted. His gaze dropped. "My life has never been the same after father died and Hela suddenly appeared. Everything went so fast, I never had the time to adjust to any of it, and I suppose that is more or less how you felt when you discovered that you were Laufey's and not Odin's son." Loki drew in a breath to interrupt that preposterous comparison but Thor silenced him with his hand. "Although, I acknowledge that learning you are a Frost Giant by birth is worse than having to find out you have a sister that is the actual heir to a throne you do not even want at that point anymore anyway."

Loki rewarded his efforts with the hint of a smile although his brother's continuous use of the term 'Frost Giant' and the disdain inherent in that label made his stomach coil.

"That doesn't change the fact that he lied to both of us though. It also doesn't change the fact that I am not yet over his death. You are not gonna understand, but I miss him. Despite everything that happened, I loved him." Loki winced but either Thor did not notice or he did not care. "And I figured that if there was one place that might bring us closer together or give us some closure, it would be the place of our ancestors. That's what he said when he died. That we should remember this place because it was home. Maybe there's something more to this than we actually had time to think about."

 _Can you believe him, Loki? How can he_ _ **do**_ _that to you? "_ Well, _your_ ancestors," was all Loki said in response.

"My ancestors, if you insist," Thor relented, looking thoughtfully into the distance when he continued. "Although legend has it that all advanced beings that dwell in the Nine Realms originally came from here."

"Is that so?"

"Why do you think Laufey tried to invade this exact place two-thousand years ago? It must have been significant to him in some way," Thor suggested.

He had said 'Laufey' but Loki's mind replaced the name with 'your father' and it almost ate him alive that Thor was talking about the former Jotun king so casually after not wasting a single word on Loki's lineage for almost a decade. It also ate him alive that Thor had the luxury of having a father who had loved him to mourn while he himself had stabbed his biological father through the heart and was more or less responsible for the death of both of his adoptive parents. _Monster, monster, monster. Cursed, cursed, cursed._

 _No, Loki, Odin is the monster. He treated you like garbage for a millennium but was still bold enough to claim that he loved you shortly before he died._

"Loki?"

 _And Thor is not much better, is he? He knows you're a monster. He just said as much. He doesn't even trust you because of your heritage. Can't you feel it? Don't you see how he looks at you?_

Loki shook off the voice with the greatest of efforts. "Do you really think I am going to have an epiphany of some sort?"

Thor gave a shrug. "Maybe, maybe not. Maybe _I'm_ gonna have one. You just never know, do you?"

Loki snorted in response to his brother's excruciating credulity. It was Thor's greatest flaw and Loki was sure that it would bring about his downfall one day. "So, what are we going to do?" Loki mocked him. "Go for a walk along the coast?"

Thor did not disappoint Loki's surmise when he replied with, "Yeah, why not?"

* * *

 _Author's Note:  
\- The 'Nidavellir' exchange results from Chris Hemsworth's mispronunciation of the name in Infinity War and even though I'm convinced Thor knows how to pronounce it correctly, I couldn't resist. I just thought it might be a funny interlude.  
\- And yes, Thor can actually be quite a gullible dumbass sometimes but I love him for it._


	9. The only thing we know that is not a lie

#9

"If the sun doesn't bother you too much?" Thor added carefully when he saw that his brother's face was still twisted into a frown, his eyes narrowed to slits against the light. "It's a lot hotter than it usually is at this time of the year, sorry about that."

"Just my luck," Loki said softly, a hint of desperation in his voice.

"But I suppose I could help along," Thor said and clenched his fist, summoning a dense blanket of rain clouds to block out the sun.

"It's okay, brother," Loki hissed but the blue sky was already darkening rapidly. "I'm not an invalid."

"I'm just trying to help," Thor mumbled but started wondering if this was really the case as soon as they started walking. Was he really trying to save his brother or was he just trying to silence his conscience? Had he truly brought him back because he had missed him or because he was convinced that _he_ would feel better if Loki completed his path of redemption? Or had he brought him back because he still couldn't forgive himself for missing his chance to defeat Thanos and expected Loki to help him clean up his messes the same way he had cleaned up so many of Loki's messes? But maybe these motivations weren't mutually exclusive and either way, they were here now. It was a ridiculous enterprise and Thor knew it would probably end in disaster but they were here now. Loki was alive.

He caught himself shooting side-glances at his brother every twenty seconds, his mind halfway expecting to see him changed back into his Asgardian form, but every time he looked, Loki's face was still of sapphire blue color with silver markings on his forehead, cheeks and chin. The mark on his forehead consisted of three separate parallel lines that reached from his hairline to his eyebrows in semi-circular shapes with another double vertical line in the middle. The other lines looked like claw marks, three of them curving upward from his chin to his lower lip and two from his tear ducts across his cheeks to his ears. Thor wondered what those lines meant but he could not remember what Laufey, former King of Jotunheim and Loki's biological father, had looked like. Did he have the same pattern of markings on his face? Were they genetic? Did they mean anything? Why couldn't he remember?

The only thing he did remember was that Loki had murdered Laufey shortly after learning about his true heritage, which he had rejected so fiercely that he had tried to destroy the whole of Jotunheim in order to erase his true origin and prove his worth as an Asgardian to his adoptive father. The memory sent a shiver down Thor's spine and he realized that it was not primarily the fact that Loki had murdered the man who had fathered him which upset him—although that was, admittedly, disturbing in its own right—but his own handling of the entire revelation. It was not until after Loki had let go of his hand that his father had told him the truth and he remembered with shame that he had pushed the knowledge to the back of his mind because he had been unable to deal with it. Worse still, he had to admit to himself that he had blamed Loki for writing off their entire childhood and brotherly bond because of a thing that did not really change anything in Thor's opinion.

At least he had thought back then that it did not change anything. Now that he could see his brother's true appearance with his own eyes, he finally realized that it changed everything. It was visible now but Loki had known it was there for the better part of the last decade and he'd had to learn to live with the knowledge that he was descendant from a race that the Asgardians, Thor himself included, had grown up to think of as enemies and fear as monsters.

He felt a tap on his shoulder and swung around. "Stop it, brother," a softly glimmering illusion of Loki hissed.

"Stop what?" Thor asked, his eyes darting back and forth between the two versions of his brother.

"Stop looking at me," the real Loki clarified with his eyes closed. "I cannot focus."

"I'm not looking at you," Thor denied and cast an apologetic glance at the illusion, which frowned at him in response.

"Yes, you are, I can feel it." The real Loki looked down and inspected his hands. "Stop it."

"Alright, alright," Thor yielded, forcing himself to stare straight ahead as Loki's breathing slowed down next to him. His mirror image was still walking beside them, and Thor watched from the corner of his eye how the blue complexion of the illusion paled into Loki's light Asgardian facial color and the disheveled curls smoothed out into a slick mane of shiny raven-black hair reaching all the way down to his chest. On the ground in front of him, a few blades of grass transformed into squirming little snakes. Thor dodged them as he walked even though he knew they were not real. Naked trees with long, gnarled branches suddenly materialized on either side of them in a soft light green glow and sprawled out their limbs like bony fingers. Thor jerked away from them, asking, "What exactly are you doing?"

Loki's illusion brushed its finger against its lips, silencing him. The gnarly branches entwined around them, trapping them in a wall of wood. Thor felt a wave of unease wash through him at the sight of the sinister mirage Loki had conjured up but forced himself to keep still. He felt the eyes of the illusion burning on his skin. After a few minutes, Loki groaned with aggravation. "What?" Thor asked, his eyes darting back to his brother.

"It's gone," Loki whispered. His Asgardian mirage faded back into him. The ugly tree wall disappeared but the sight that replaced it was no less gloomy, for the black clouds suddenly erupted and heavy rain started beating down on his face. "You just created all sorts of illusions," Thor objected, fighting the feeling of hopelessness that rose inside of his chest. "Your magic—"

"But I cannot change _this_." Loki held up his blue palm. His voice was barely above a whisper.

"This is probably temporary," Thor assured him without thinking, praying to the Norns that it was true; that Loki could change his appearance back for both of their sakes and being painfully aware of how selfish that thought was. "You're probably just exhausted. Give yourself some time."

"I have been exhausted before and could still—

"You never died before," Thor reminded him, mentally willing the rain to stop. "At least not for real."

"This is not something that just goes away," Loki howled. "She _took_ it away." His eyes began to flicker with—rage? despair? madness?—and he held up his hand, its palm facing Thor, narrowing his eyes in intense concentration. Nothing happened. "She took _everything_ away."

"Loki, please …"

His brother's eyes glimmered for a moment before he got lost in thought. The only problem was that he was not really thinking when this particular expression settled on his face. Rather, he seemed to be getting lost in the abyss of his own mind.

"Loki?"

Out of nowhere, his brother took a big swing and rammed his fist into Thor's biceps, sending an explosion of pain along his neural pathways. "Ooow! What was that for?"

"Does that hurt, yes?" Loki asked and took another swing. Thor tried to squirm away from another punch but his brother's fist was faster.

"Loki, what are you doing?" Thor yelled. "Stop punching me!"

"I was just making sure I still have my superhuman strength," Loki replied, looking at his fingers with a new kind of interest.

"And more of that, it seems," Thor noted, breathing through the wave of pain rippling through his arm. "You've never had such a—" Loki was gazing at him half-amused, half-curious, before his eyes moved heavenward. "What?" Thor asked, uneasily. This was his brother's crazy stare and the hairs on Thor's arm began to tingle with alarm as Loki opened his palm and caught a few drops of the subsiding rain in it.

"Loki, what are you doing?" Thor asked firmly. His brother was transforming the water drops on his hand into three spikes of ice about ten inches long and two inches wide. His hand shot forward just as Thor thrust out his arms in defense, the tip of the razor-sharp spikes slashing into the skin on his right wrist. "Loki, what the fuck?" Thor roared and clasped his right arm with his left hand, blood dripping through his fingers.

"I-I am sorry," Loki stammered, "but that was entirely your fault."

"My fault?" Thor echoed, his voice vibrating with rage. The noise of distant thunder rumbled across the sky.

"I was just—I would have stopped but you practically rammed your arm into my hand, I am sorry." Loki had the decency to look at least somewhat contrite. He looked down at his hands and the icy spikes that were now speckled by scarlet drops of blood.

Thor rubbed his bleeding wrist against his shirt, bewildered by his own naivety. "I brought you back from the dead and, in return, you _attack_ me?" It was more of an assessment than a question. This was what he should have expected when he had embarked on this journey. Valkyrie and Tony had been right. This was insane. "I should have known better."

"I did not mean to attack you," Loki mumbled as he shook his hand, causing the blood on it to splash onto the grass.

"You _punched_ me," Thor reminded him. "Twice."

"I was just—" Loki bent down, his eyes alight with that accursed sparkle of madness. His arm jerked upwards and Thor grabbed it before he could slam it into the ground, yanking his brother's entire body backwards.

"Would you _stop_ it?" Thor screamed.

"It won't come off," Loki replied and shook his hand again, as if he actually believed he could dislodge icicles that had somehow grown out of his own skin. "Brother, I am sorry, okay?" Loki mumbled as he felt Thor glowering at him. "I have not yet figured out how this is supposed to work."

A desperate laugh escaped Thor's lips when he realized just how difficult Loki was going to make this for him, be it intentionally or unintentionally. He was Jotun now. He could manipulate moisture into sharp icy weapons. Whatever it was inside that Infinity Stone, it had taken his Asgardian form away and Loki was as unprepared for the identity crisis this was bound to bring about as Thor himself was. _You see, there are a hell of a lot of worst-case scenarios here,_ Tony had said, but of all the worst-case scenarios this was _the_ worst worst-case scenario because he had not seen it coming. Because he had ignored it all those years.

"I am sorry," Loki repeated but he did not look at him. The illusion of the garment's sleeve dissolved. His brother started scratching the skin of his own arm with the tip of the icicle.

"Please, Loki, stop it."

When no blood came, he jabbed the spikes in full force.

"Loki!" Thor bent over but then realized he could hardly wrest the weapon from his brother. Loki watched in awe as thick drops of blood oozed out around the edge of the icicles and ran down his arms in thin streaks of dark space blue. Thor's stomach clenched when Loki brought up his arm to his face and started licking the blood off his arm with a tongue that was of indigo color. Thor tried to fight it but eventually he gagged.

Loki laughed, his face warped with madness. "Do you still think that nothing is ever going to change that I am your brother?" He tore out his hand and scooped up the tiny rest of the blood that sept out with the spikes he had created out of the rain.

Unable to answer this question, Thor asked, "Why aren't you bleeding?"

"Because my blood is practically frozen, you imbecile," Loki snarled at him. "It is frozen and it is _black_. Look, _brother_!" He held up his hand, forcing Thor to look at the dark blood on the icicles, to look at how the blue-black of Loki's blood was staining his own scarlet blood a dark purple. "This is what I am. This is what I have always been on the inside."

"But you are more than that," Thor tried, struggling for words because as much as he had missed his brother and as much as he wanted to help him, he could not fight against the disgust that he felt in response to Loki's blue skin even though he hated himself for it.

"I just made you _gag_ ," Loki reminded him in a hoarse voice. "You _gagged_."

"Because you licked off your own blood," Thor objected, the words spluttering out of his mouth on their own. "I would gag if anyone did this. I mean, what are you, a vampire?"

Loki frowned. "I just wanted to know what it tastes like."

"And what does it taste like?" Thor asked softly, dreading the answer that he somehow knew was going to come.

"It doesn't taste like anything," Loki whispered, lowering his hand and closing his eyes against the exasperation. When he opened them again, the madness was gone. "How did she do this, Thor? How could _she_ take away what Odin's and mother's death and Asgard's destruction left intact?"

This was indeed the only question that truly mattered but he had no answer for it. "How would I know?" Thor settled on saying. "It's not like I'm an expert in magic spells."

Loki rewarded his attempt at conciliation by humor with a faint smile.

"What did she tell you?" Thor asked carefully, scanning his brother's reaction to the change of subject. Loki looked at him questioningly, so he continued. "Surely there must have been something she said about what this place"— _the Infinity Stone_ —"is and what it is … for. I mean, it wasn't Hel."

"She said it was her refuge," Loki told him, surprisingly, without hesitation. "That it was like Hel in a way, but not entirely, of course. She said the place allowed her to look into my soul, to access my memories, and the moment she looked at me, I felt it. She forced her way into my head by sheer force of will and tore everything away and she … God, why am I telling you this?"

"Because I asked nicely?" Thor asked back, unable to struggle against the crushing weight of Loki's agony with any another conversational weapon than a largely misplaced sense of humor.

Loki smiled thinly. "Truth be told, it doesn't matter how she did it," he mused after a pause and then continued to recite Thor's thoughts from a few moments before. "Because it would not change anything, would it? Asgard is gone, Odin and Frigga are gone, and this is who I am, what I am, what I have _always_ been. She might have brought it to light for you to see but it has been there all along and, despite all your reassurance, I have known all along that _something_ about me is different."

"Loki …"

"No, brother. There is _nothing_ you can say and you know this as much as I do because _this_ —" Loki raised his hand again, shoving the icy spikes into his face for emphasis—"is the only thing we both know for certain is not a lie."

* * *

 _Author's Note:_  
 _\- So, here's two chapters all at once for you because I woke up at 4:30 a.m. today and couldn't go back to sleep, so I edited these two and here they are. I really had a lot of fun with this one, especially the illusions and Loki trying out his Jotun powers. Also, Thor's perspective on Loki's heritage truly fascinates me since he's never actually seen his brother's true form before and the next chapter is going to explore this even more. I can't wait to finish it (although it will be a while since I'm going on vacation tomorrow).  
-And if you like the story, please leave a review and also if you don't like it, please leave constructive criticism. It would be very much appreciated. Thank you :3  
_


	10. The brother you want to save so badly

#10

"Loki …" Thor racked his brain for something else to say but his thoughts failed him. Loki was shutting down emotionally and he knew he needed to prevent this at all costs, because once his brother's lips remained sealed, he could never be sure whether Loki was merely lost in thought or if he was slowly sinking into his own mind, drowning in madness, and plotting to kill him.

"Not everything has been a lie," Thor tried but, even to his own ears, it sounded insincere. "We grew up together as brothers. That is _not_ a lie; not to me."

Loki grunted but at least he gave a reaction. "Of course not," he mocked.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that I can see in your goddamn eyes just how much you think of me as your brother right now," Loki snapped. "You have internalized the hatred towards Jotuns as much as everyone else did. Don't lie to me." His voice was thick. "Not about this."

"But you're still you," Thor said softly, uncomfortably aware that the last time he'd said those words, the _you_ he'd denounced back then was the very same _you_ he was trying to advocate now.

"Maybe. But do us both a favor and acknowledge to yourself that you wish I didn't look like this," Loki whispered, his voice quavering with pain and anger. So much anger. Thor's stomach dropped. "Accept that I was born like this and that Odin made me into something I'm not." Loki's gleaming red eyes searched for his. "Accept that the brother you want to save so badly never existed."

Thor was at a loss for words. Loki had seen right through him, of course he had, but even though he was pleading with him not to lie about it, Thor could not admit out loud that his brother's Jotun appearance was bothering him for reasons he didn't even entirely understand. He could not say, 'Yes, I wish you'd come back in your Asgardian form,' although this was exactly what he wished for.

A desperate laugh escaped Loki's lips but the flicker of madness in his eyes miraculously died down. Even though his skin remained blue and his eyes remained red, he suddenly transformed back into the Loki he had known for fifteen-hundred years. "See?"

"What happened?" Thor asked softly because he could not think of anything else to say. "You redeemed yourself. We saved Asgard. We saved it _together_." He paused for breath because he knew what he was going to say next would pain them both. "You died as an Odinson."

"I didn't die as Odin's son," Loki corrected him quietly. "I died as your brother."

"That is not true. I saw you cry on this exact same spot when he died. I saw you mourn him, if ever so briefly. Whatever happened to you that you can't seem to forgive him now?"

"Give me one reason why I should."

Thor drew in a deep breath. "Because you're wrong. Not about everything, of course. He should have told you but you think he didn't love you and that is not true. He saw you grow up, Loki, and he learned to love you even though you weren't his son by birth. I know that. And remember, he did say that he loved us both, shortly before he died. Stop telling yourself that he didn't."

Loki swallowed. "Do you want to know what Odin said to me when you took me back to Asgard after New York? He told me that the only birthright I could claim was being cast out onto a frozen rock and left to die."

Thor felt hatred flare up inside of him at the thought of Odin saying such a vile thing to Loki's face, but he had learned over the years that the only things hatred and anger brought forth were more hatred and more anger, so he tried to calm himself down. "I don't know what to say. He probably didn't mean to—"

" _Didn't mean to_?" Loki echoed, shooting him an incredulous glare. "Let me make one thing very clear, brother. If you try to convince me one more time that this man loved me, I will never speak another word with you for as long as I live. Odin was a _terrible_ father, not only to me. He cast his own daughter out. After that, he fed you the lie of being his firstborn, made you believe you were ready for the throne when clearly you were not, then stripped you of your powers and exiled you to Midgard for not being ready as if it was your fault. He took me away from my home, from my real father, and kept me as a discardable political trump card that he would have played for peace with Jotunheim anytime given half a chance. He locked me up in the dungeons. He would have ruled death for my crimes if not for mother's intervention. Not to mention the fact that he senselessly started a war with the Dark Elves—the very thing he banished Hela for, mind you—over mother's death. He was a _terrible_ person but, go ahead, keep telling yourself that he wasn't and that he loved you."

Thor was dumbstruck. He had hoped for an emotional reaction—that was why he had brought Loki back to this place after all—but he hadn't expected it to escalate _so_ quickly. He hadn't expected to have his worldview smashed to pieces. "I know that he did," he whispered, too paralyzed to respond to anything else his brother had said.

"Well, good for you," Loki snapped. He had stopped dead in his tracks, his red eyes drowning in pain. His breathing was so heavy that his entire face was vibrating.

"Loki, I—"

"No, you stop talking!" Loki shouted in a shrill, tearful voice. His entire body was shaking now. "I know what you are trying to do. You are trying to ease your conscience. You want me to forgive him so that you can mourn him in peace and that is a ruthlessly selfish thing to do considering the fact that I wasn't even allowed to attend mother's funeral!"

"That was _years_ ago!" Thor cried out. The familiar anger and sense of betrayal that had always mingled with the love for his brother in recent years had been gone after his death, but it came back now and it was doing so with an intensity that threatened to overpower him. "You're not seriously putting the blame for something you alone messed up on _me_ after all this time, are you?"

"Yes, I am!"

"It wasn't _my_ fault that he took you from Jotunheim, Loki. It wasn't _my_ fault that he lied to you. It wasn't _my_ fault that he wanted to make _me_ king instead of you. It also wasn't _my_ fault that you attacked New York and that he imprisoned you for it!" Thor screamed. "And it certainly wasn't _my_ fault that Malekith killed our mother!"

Although, maybe it was, because he'd brought the Aether back to Asgard in Jane's body. But that was beside the point.

Tears sprang into Loki's eyes. He squeezed them shut to keep the tears from spilling and tiny ice crystals solidified on his lashes. "Still you chose not to tell me. You could have at least _told_ me," Loki whispered. He opened his eyes and flicked the tear crystals away with his little finger. "You sent a _guard_ to deliver the message and you never once acknowledged that I had as much of a right as you did to be devastated by her death."

Thor nodded weakly as the anger he had felt only moments ago streamed out of him, leaving him with a feeling of emptiness and desolation. Even though Frigga had told him that he and Odin had cast large shadows over Loki's existence and had said right to his face that she had always loved and would always love Loki as much as she had always loved and would always Thor himself, he had called their bond into question after his brother's misdeeds. He had thought her naïve for still believing in him but more than that, he had called Loki's feelings for her into question because he had been convinced that Loki did not care about anyone or anything besides himself and his own pain at that time. Only now did he see that this was not true. "It wasn't the most virtuous thing I've ever done," Thor acknowledged in a low voice. "I give you that."

Loki gave a hardly perceptible nod. "What truly bewilders me is that you were unwilling to share our grief about mother's death but still somehow expect me to mourn for Odin with you or, at the very least, reconsider my resentment towards him."

In the face of these not so far-fetched accusations, Thor's anger came back with full force. "Mother died years ago, shortly after you declared war on Midgard, threatening to kill everyone _I_ cared about; shortly after you tried to kill _me_ several times. You're right, I didn't want you at her funeral because I thought it was somehow your fault and that is why I thought you didn't deserve to be there and I didn't want to share my grief with you either because of it." Loki flinched but somehow this gesture only fueled his anger. "And coming to think of it, _you_ were responsible for Odin's death as well, so, yes, I really shouldn't expect you to mourn for him because the only person you've been capable of mourning in the past is _yourself_!" He breathed out heavily, his entire body throbbing with rage.

Loki hissed a laugh. "Oh, make up your mind, brother."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means what it means," Loki replied curtly.

Thor sprang forward, his hands making a grab for his brother's neck as he had so many times before but this was the first time he truly recognized it as a gesture of sheer desperation. His hands had grabbed Loki by the neck on the plane on which Tony Stark and Steve Rogers had captured him after he had killed eighty-nine people in Germany shortly after Thanos had released him. He had grabbed him by the neck on the rocky surface they had landed on after escaping from that plane. He had grabbed him by the neck on Stark Tower when he had tried to convince him to stop the Chitauri. He had grabbed him by the neck when Loki had accused him of being responsible for Frigga's death all those years ago. And yet, Thor had never meant to hurt him. He had always grabbed his brother's neck in the fallacious hope that his touch might shake Loki out of yet another stupor and Loki had never flinched. Until now. Loki jerked away from him, stumbling backwards, his chest heaving with short, erratic breaths.

Thor pulled back instantly and held up his arms in a gesture of surrender, palms outstretched.

"Leave me alone," Loki whispered, his voice growing louder as he continued. "You only ever come to me when you want something, which means that the only reason you brought me back is because you want something from me now as well. Information about Thanos and the Infinity Stones, I should guess. But then again, you didn't only bring me back from the dead, did you?" He took a step towards him, closing the distance between them. "You brought me to this of all places to reminisce or the Norns know what else, which tells me that you miss Asgard and Odin and Frigga and your friends and maybe you even missed me a little. What a shame that I look like this now, huh? That even though I am back, I am also somehow gone, and you are somehow still alone. Well, fancy that, your old life is gone, Thor. It is _gone_. Just like my white skin."

"You accuse _me_ of being selfish," Thor concluded and even though he was well aware he had been acting selfishly when he had embarked upon this journey, it made him furious that his brother was confronting him with it. "You, of all people."

"You _are_ being selfish," Loki replied coldly. "You've always been selfish when it came to our … relationship."

Thor spat out a desperate laugh as memories of the past weeks flashed up in front of his inner eye. The face of Tony Stark when the other man had returned to Midgard from Titan with Nebula; bruised and battered and beyond all hope, mumbling more to himself than anyone else, "We lost." The warm welcome, which they had all received from Shuri and the rest of the Wakandan people despite the tremendous losses the nation had suffered. Thanos's almost-sneer when the titan had told him that he should have gone for his head. Natasha Romanoff's half-smile when he had arrived on the battlefield in Wakanda with his newly forged weapon. Valkyrie's cry that "thank God" he was alive when they had returned to the Avengers Facility in Upstate New York. Bruce's hand on his shoulder. The expression of absolute forlornness on Steve Roger's face. Thor might have acted selfishly every now and then along the way but he was still part of something bigger and he was a part of it in a way that Loki—the trickster, the rogue, the master of lies and deceit—could not ever hope to understand, even if he was to live for another millennium. Suddenly, he remembered Loki shouting at him, _I am not your brother. I never was,_ and he remembered, too, just how easily he had brushed this off as another flight of fancy. How easily he had always discredited Loki's surges of emotion. How easily he had written him off as a mother's boy. How easily he had questioned his abilities as a warrior, as a son and as an heir to the throne of a realm that no longer existed. And then he remembered what he had said to Odin, who had not been Odin at all, a perceived lifetime ago: _I would rather be a good man than a great king._

Was he being a good man right now? Probably not. Was he fulfilling his duty as an Avenger? Most definitely not. Was he being the big brother he could have been when Loki had found out that his entire existence had been a lie? He was trying to be but Loki was making it insanely difficult. Yet as much as Thor wanted to help Loki—as much as he wanted to give him back a sense of self, a home, a sense of belonging somewhere—he realized that he would have to give him up in favor of his friends. "I was a fool to believe you would for once appreciate what I've done for you," Thor mumbled to himself as he turned away. "I will be gone then."

"Wait," Loki cried out. "Are you just going to leave me here?"

"Oh, make up your mind, brother," Thor parroted him without turning back. "You just asked me to leave you alone not two minutes ago." He quickened his pace and strode away, leaving Loki to himself as he pondered over how he had just put the innocent soul of one of his friends at stake. He needed time to think and get himself out of the mess he had catapulted himself into because he had neglected his duty not only as an Avenger but also as the God of Thunder and protector of the Nine Realms when he had put his personal objectives over those he had sworn to defend. He needed time to figure out a way to retrieve the Infinity Stone from Hela and to preempt their bargain in some other way than taking his brother's life. He searched the bag he was carrying for the communication device that Tony Stark had forced upon him and noticed with no great surprise that Valkyrie had left him a number of messages. He put the device away again. Apart from the fact that he was still suspicious of its usefulness, he did not know what he could possibly say to her. _You were right. Of course, you were right. This was beyond dumb._ _And I actually made everything a lot worse. By Odin's beard, I offered Hela a mortal soul. And for what?_ _ **For what**_ _? For a brother who only ever sees the worst in me._ He pulled the device back out, briefly considering calling her and saying just that, but then put it away again. He was not yet ready to admit to his defeat. He would not speak to her again before he had thought of a plan.

And so Thor kept walking until the clouded sky eventually faded into dark and a small wooden cabin loomed at the horizon. He headed towards it on impulse. A coal-black raven was flapping its wings over his head as he climbed the sloped trail towards the cabin's door. The bird followed him and perched on the poorly plated roof as he gently knocked on the door. No answer came. He briefly contemplated turning around but then pushed the door open and set a foot over the threshold. The cabin, which was consisting of two built-in wooden bunk beds on the left and a seating area around a fireplace along with a small kitchen nook on the right side, seemed uninhabited. He entered and stepped into small heaps of dirt and ashes. He tried to swallow the horror, his entire body rendered motionless with shock for a moment.

Then he registered the raven flying into the cabin through the door he had not yet closed, perching on one of the armchairs and fixing him with dark turtle green eyes. Thor walked towards it, suddenly overpowered by another roaring wave of anger. The animal was surveying him the same way it would have surveyed a worm squirming in the grass if it had indeed been a raven. Thor lunged forward and clutched the bird, squeezing the small body inside his fingers. The raven cawed.

"Come on," Thor mumbled. "I know it's you." He tightened his grip a little.

"Please stop," Bird-Loki pleaded. "You're hurting me."

"And you're lying to me," Thor fired back. "You told me you couldn't shapeshift anymore, yet here you are, messing about with my mind as you always do."

Loki croaked in response. Thor flung him onto the blue-and-white checkered couch that stood by the wood-paneled wall. Loki transformed back into his real form mid-toss and landed ungracefully on the cushion, groaning softly. "I don't know why my powers keep coming back so slowly and chaotically."

Thor punished him with silence.

"Fine," Loki conceded. "We need to talk. About the Infinity Stones."

* * *

 _ **Author's note:**_

 _Okay, so here's a little more madness, a little more sadness and a liiiiittle more family drama. It honest to God took me almost a month to finish this because, even though I know exactly where I want this story to end, I still couldn't figure out how to unravel the knot of this particular interaction after it sort of took on a life of its own in my roleplay. But since this moment between Thor and Loki is basically the springboard of everything that is going to follow, I wanted it to be as authentic as possible, so I rewrote this about eight times, testing different scenarios, different reactions, different dialogues. Thor and Loki do have a very complex, very destructive and also very dependent relationship and I truly think that if you set them free on a deserted place like that with no way to escape they would argue for a hundred years. Also, I am convinced that Loki would not come to his senses in a matter of hours after being tortured, so I tried to touch upon all the aspects that might have corrupted his relationship with Thor and that might rise to the surface in such a confrontation, while simultaneously trying to keep it as short as possible and circumvent repetitions (I see your point, Akira, I really do). If this was too slow a wind-up, I apologize and I promise the next chapters will get down to business._

 _Also, thank you GlitterQueen, for pointing out that the Bifrost should have been linked to Asgard itself. I agree but since Thor could summon the Bifrost with Stormbreaker in Infinity War and Odin could, in fact, travel across the Nine Realms before the Bifrost was even created in the comics, I think that it is fueled not by Asgard as a place but by some kind of power that the Aesir possess and that they somehow can administrate in different ways, including having it somehow transferred to the forges of Nidavellir.  
_

 _And last but not least: I published a one-shot last night that might give you a little hint about Loki and the Infinity Stones :3_


	11. How can you expect us to go on?

#11

"I'm listening," Thor mumbled and walked over to the door to close it. His unfamiliarly caring and patient attitude had vanished so quickly that Loki thought he might have imagined it. His brother had briefly transformed into the old Thor out by the coast, looking at him with mistrust and frustration, and now he was the same Thor who had incapacitated him with the obedience disk on Sakaar, an expression of whateverism stamped across his face. It was that excruciating look of indifference, which had prompted Loki to prove his brother wrong and gain back his trust by joining him in the fight against Hela because indifference was so much harder to bear than hate or incrimination. But back then—which seemed a whole lifetime ago now—Loki had longed for his brother's company after the shocking revelation of their sister's existence and the weeks he had subsequently spent in the Grandmaster's borderline psychedelic dominion. And, most of all, the dark part had been lying dormant then and right now, it was pretty much awake, igniting a firecracker of anger at Thor's self-exaltation in his mind.

Even though every fiber in Loki's depleted body ached to sink deeper into the cushion of the couch, he heaved himself to his feet and positioned himself against the armrest, arms crossed in front of his chest. "I'm curious, brother," he sneered, "is that the attitude with which you are going to prove to me that I belong by your side and that you have so many things to apologize for or is that yet to be displayed?"

Thor made a sound halfway between a sigh and a desperate laugh, his gaze resting on a pile of ashes by the door. "I guess that was a little hasty of me," he mumbled and then paused thoughtfully. "You just hate me too much for this to ever work out."

Loki opened his mouth to speak but all that came out was a little squeak. _And just what are you going to say, anyway? Are you going to deny it? Oh, please. It is true. You hate him._

 _No, it is not. I don't hate him, you do._

 _But I am you and you are me. We are one._

Thor crouched down, scooped up the ashes and let them flutter through his fingers. "Although I suppose, Hela made it worse by messing with your mind," he mumbled, "but there will always be a part inside of you that wants me harm. You sent the Destroyer to kill me long before Hela or even Thanos got inside your head and twisted your memories against me, so what's the point of me trying, really?"

Loki felt like someone was slamming a brick into his ribs as Hela's voice rang out inside his skull, leaving a gaping hole in his chest. _You are just a defiant and defenseless child, quivering in the shadows, trembling with fear and awe at the thought of what your forefathers have achieved, Little Laufeyson._ He felt his muscles slacken and took a clumsy seat on the armrest as he realized something else. _Thanos … He knows … How does he know? Did Thanos tell him? Oh, please no, it can't be … What happened after I died?_

"Can you answer that question, brother?" Thor asked softly, his eyes still fixed on the floor. "Can you _genuinely_ assure me that the sun will shine on us again or is the shadow of your hatred going to linger?"

Loki felt every muscle in his body tense, his throat running dry. _I want to assure you, I really do, but I am not alone in my head._ "Do I have to give you an answer immediately?"

This elicited a faint chuckle from Thor before he rose to his feet, locking eyes with Loki across the room. For a moment, they just stood in that strange deserted wooden cabin, scrutinizing each other as if they were seeing the other for the very first time. As far as his brother was concerned, this was certainly true. Thor broke eye contact first and settled into an armchair across from the couch.

"This is how he did it," he said softly, jerking his head in the direction of the door. "Thanos," he clarified when Loki shot him a puzzled glance. "He used the gauntlet to restore balance to the universe by erasing half of it and he did it with a single snap of his fingers." Suddenly, there was pain in his voice, so much pain and so much guilt, too. "Half of all living things vaporized instantly but I assume you know that already."

"I knew what his goal was but I didn't know how exactly he was going to do it," Loki answered truthfully.

"Now you know," Thor replied curtly. "So, what did you want to tell me about the stones?"

"Is that really all you want from me? Information?" Loki hissed because, suddenly and quite surprisingly, he wanted Thor to change the subject back and force the truth out of him. _Why? Why do you hate me so much? … Because I have that voice inside my head that will not stop screaming and I'm sorry, brother, I truly am sorry, but I just don't know how to silence it._

Thor did not oblige. _Of course he didn't_. "Oh, brother, _please_ ," he reprimanded him instead, availing himself to that awful holier-than-thou voice of his that made Loki's entire body seethe with rage. Well, technically, he was no longer seething as he used to. It felt more like freezing rain dazing him from the inside. "You told me to leave you alone and I did but then you followed me here, _offering_ me information," Thor rattled away. "You truly are intractable, you know that? I brought you back from the dead even though it violates everything I stand for because you called to me for help and in return, you call me selfish. I saved you from Hela's whatever it was that she did to you and in return, you attack me. You never once thanked me for anything. Instead, you are accusing me of base interests all the time. You have made it more than clear that you despise me for being Odin's real son. You have made that clear more than once, actually, but still, you always come crawling back to me. You are a walking, breathing contradiction in terms and I never really knew what your game was but, with the fate of half the universe at stake, I actually don't care anymore. Either you talk to me or you don't but stop creeping around like that."

Loki's heart plummeted into his stomach when he heard those words, which were even more painful than the speech Thor had delivered right before he'd left him electroshocked on the floor on Sakaar and the expression on his face was worse too because it was not just indifference. It was indifference brought about by hopelessness. After all those years of basking in the dazzling glory of victory, the spirit of the Mighty Thor had finally been crushed by loss and defeat and Loki was surprised to realize that the sight did not give him an ounce of gratification. Instead, it drove a dagger through his heart.

 _Enough of the sentiment, Loki! Get ahold of yourself._

 _No!_ Loki screamed inwardly. _**You**_ _keep silent now!_ _ **You**_ _leave! I have no more need for your vile counsel! I. DO. NOT. WANT. YOUR. PRESENCE. IN. MY. HEAD. ANYMORE._

Magically, his head went still. Loki drew in a sharp breath and took a leap of faith. "This has never been about you being Odin's son," he told Thor softly. "It has been about me _not_ being his son."

Thor's features smoothened. "You _were_ his son. And you are my brother."

Loki gave a timid nod, allowing himself to consider the possibility that his brother might be telling the truth. "The stones are in distress," he began softly, steering away from the conversation that he knew neither of them was ready to conduct at this moment. "They are ..." He broke off, trying to collect his thoughts and give significance to what he had felt when his larynx had been crushed by the Infinity Gauntlet or when he had used the last droplet of his powers to shapeshift into a bird only moments ago.

Thor leaned forward in his armchair and propped his elbows up on his knees. "They are what?"

"They are indignant," Loki continued. "They are revolting against the iniquity they have been misused for and I suppose, Thanos did pay some kind of price for that, isn't that so? I suppose the Infinity Gauntlet was rendered quite useless after this … snap?"

Thor's eyes widened in surprise. " _How_ can you know that?"

"Because I am linked with the stones," Loki allowed. "In fact, I am linked with several of them."

"The mind stone," Thor pondered aloud, the wrinkles on his forehead attesting to his cognitive efforts. "He manipulated you with it and the space stone, too. It was in your possession when you boarded the ship and it was on the Gauntlet when you … Did you … What did you _really_ do with the Tesseract before you faced Thanos on that ship?"

Loki smiled weakly, trying to blank out the disturbing notion that somehow Thor had come to know about what Thanos had done to him. In the face of the titan's final assault on the integrity of his self, part of him had melted off his conscious mind, as it had so many times before, but this time the memory was wondrously coming back. Sacrifice had not been the only thing on his mind and how could it have been, really? He would not be the Trickster God if his sly mind had not also conjured up a possible way to prevent his disintegration and the subsequent voyage to the afterworld. He had approached Thanos, yes, but partly he had done so with the intention of coming as close to the Infinity Gauntlet as possible. He had known instinctively what the titan would do if he got ahold of him. He had promised him as much, his voice booming through Loki's skull on the rooftop of Stark Tower all those years ago, when he had gained his senses back for a few seconds, panicking at the sight of the Chitauri annihilating New York. He had been torn between a devouring hunger for vengeance and the love for his brother, who was grabbing him by the shoulders, insisting they could fight this together, but eventually, Thanos had won. Twice. _If you fail to bring me Tesseract,_ he had threatened back then, _I will squeeze your miserable life out of your body with my bare hands until there is nothing left inside of you._ And squeezed he had, while Loki's self-preservation instinct had been trying to use his remaining powers to bind his spirit to the Space Stone. He had not been entirely sure whether he would succeed and what the consequences might be but time had not exactly been on his side, so he had followed through with the impulse against all odds. He told his brother all this, concluding with, "It did not work, though, obviously."

"It did work," Thor confessed. "In a way."

His answer came as a complete surprise. "I don't understand," Loki mumbled.

Thor chewed on his bottom lip before he finally came forth with at least part of the truth. "There is another Infinity Stone. A black one. I don't know how it is possible but the place where Hela kept you, it was inside that stone. So, you might not have ended up in the Space Stone but you ended up in another Infinity Stone."

"So it is true," Loki whispered, overwhelmed by the implications of that one piece of the puzzle he had known was missing since he had tried to make sense of Hela's dimension and its effects on him.

"What do you mean, it is true? You _knew_ about this stone?"

"Well, I heard of its existence but it was nothing but rumors." Loki gave a sigh that transformed into a small laugh. His exhaustion finally made its presence felt, screaming for a rest. He could feel both his body and mind threatening to give in to the strains they had endured. He pushed his body off the armrest, slid back onto the couch and leaned against the backrest, closing his eyes, every bone in his accursed Jotun body seemingly turning to lead. "It all makes sense now."

He felt Thor's eyes searching for his but he could not find the strength to open his own eyes again. "What does?"

"The Reality Stone," Loki whispered, mentally struggling against the exhaustion that he knew would not have bothered him as much if his body were still that of an Aesir. Or if he hadn't been drained and tortured yet again. "It is a part of me or I am a part of it, however you like. I found out a few years ago. When I learned what—or who—I was, I believed mother had to have cast a spell over me to hide my Jotun form, but when she died and I remained Asgardian, I knew that it couldn't have been one of her spells that changed my appearance. Then we traveled to Svartalfheim and the Aether came within in my reach." He paused for breath. "It communicated with me. I sensed a connection. I didn't believe it at first but when you brought the Reality Stone back to Asgard after Malektih's defeat and I had a chance to study it, I understood that I did not owe my appearance to a spell because it was not only my appearance that had been changed. My body's entire molecular structure underwent a permanent alteration. An alteration only the Reality Stone itself can induce, which is why I did not change back after mother died. Permanent changes made by the Reality Stone can only be reversed by the Reality Stone itself."

"But how are they reversed now? You never came into contact with the Reality Stone after your … death," Thor objected.

"The Reality Stone was created by the seventh stone, in a way," Loki explained, forcing his eyes back open. Fatigue was blurring his vision. "The Infinity Stones came into existence when the goddess Nemesis ended her life and shattered the essence of her being into six entities that created our universe. The seventh stone is her conscience. It is the mother of the other stones, metaphorically speaking. So it makes sense how Hela could use it to reverse my body's alteration."

"Which means she must have known that it had been used on you and how is that possible? Apart from that, father was not even in possession of the Reality Stone at that time."

"Or so he told us," Loki reminded him.

"Right," Thor acknowledged. "So, I suppose the question is: Could we use this stone to communicate with the others? To sort of lure them away from Thanos?"

"Certainly. But the far more important question is: How did Hela get ahold of it and how do we get it back?"

"I'm still working on that one," Thor mumbled.

"Will you answer my questions in return?" Loki asked cautiously, halfway expecting Thor to evade his concern yet again but his brother gave a nod. "How did you bring me back here? Hela would never have let me go."

Thor sighed more dramatically than he would have had to but after a brief pause, he spoke. "She did not want to let you go, true, but I fought her and I won."

"Why would I believe that when I saw with my own eyes how even the full magnitude of your powers could not defeat her before?"

"Because I have the Stormbreaker now," Thor replied almost nonchalantly and, very briefly, the same old belief in his own superiority and invulnerability that had almost pushed Loki over the edge of madness uncountable times flared up in his eyes. "It can summon the Bifrost, remember? I forced my way into her kingdom with it, I fought her with it and I defeated her with it."

Loki had to admit to himself that it was not impossible. Thor had vanquished other, more powerful adversaries throughout his long life. He fought at his best when he was brim-full with rage and Loki imagined that losing against Thanos had infuriated him beyond measure. He felt almost sorry for him.

"Another question is: Is she dead or is she alive?" Thor asked.

"I thought you said you defeated her," Loki replied.

"Yeah but …" Thor fell silent, his gaze resting on his own hands. "I entered the Kingdom of the Dead and she was there. Well, she was in that stone with you but she came out when she realized that I'd broken in and, to be honest, I really don't know." His facial muscles trembled slightly. "Does her pact with death necessarily end with her own death? She could still exist inside Hel even though she died, right?"

Loki thought it over. "Possible." Then, the unwanted memories came back, pushing him ever closer to a mental short circuit. _Souls are corrupted, full of darkness and despair. I don't need Asgard anymore. And you and your beautiful delusion will be my main power source from now on and it will make me a lot stronger a lot faster than I thought possible._ "She implied the need to become stronger, so she might actually be dead."

Thor seemed to be thinking this over, his face twisted in a deep frown. There was a long silence.

"Did I really call on you for help?" Loki asked softly although he was not particularly eager to hear the answer.

"Yes. I heard you call out to me in a dream," Thor replied. "But who knows. Maybe it wasn't you after all. Maybe it was the stones. Maybe the axe did absorb some of their power when I rammed it into Thanos' chest or maybe it was the seventh stone calling on your behalf or—"

"You rammed the axe into his _chest_?" Loki asked incredulously. "You should have aimed for—"

"Don't even think about saying that," Thor cut in, his face a grimace of pain. "I've blamed myself enough already."

Loki was stunned by the guilt skewing his brother's face. A heavy silence crept into the tiny cabin, seemingly soaking up the entire supply of oxygen in the tight space.

"It all makes sense now, though," Thor mumbled absentmindedly. "How everything happened the way it did?"

"I'm not sure I understand," Loki replied, inwardly flinching from all the possible reference points of the word _everything_.

"Thanos desired the Infinity Stones all along and if you have the energy of the reality stone inside of you, he might have sensed it after you threw yourself into the void and that is why he …" His voice trailed off.

"Don't go there, brother," Loki pleaded. He had felt the buried memories push against the lid his conscious mind had placed over them ever since his return to the land of the living and he knew he was too exhausted to fight them if they broke through now.

Thor looked him straight in the eye. "You have to go there at some point."

Loki shook his head, frantically. _No, you are wrong. I cannot go back there._ _Not now. Not_ _ **ever**_ _._

"I know he's been inside your head," Thor continued softly. "It took me a long time to understand what happened to you but I understand it now. He used the Mind Stone on you. He altered the energetic manifestations of your thoughts, amplifying existing negative emotions, planting new memories and erasing everything that made us a family. You told me you remembered me tossing you into the abyss, yet we both know this is not what happened. And now Hela did the same."

Loki squirmed.

Thor's voice was trembling when he asked, "How can you ever expect us to go on if the poisonous memories implanted by his torture are still tormenting you?"

Without another warning, the mental lid cracked open. The second Thor acknowledged that Loki had been tortured, the second he actually saw compassion in his brother's eyes for what might have been the ﬁrst time, all those memories he had expelled into the psychical darkness of his subconscious broke free and bulleted into his conscious mind. Every fiber of his body began to fight the threat that those memories presented to the core of his existence but they were like shards of glass, slicing his mental defenses in half.


	12. No lesser being

**[TRIGGER WARNING: TORTURE MEMORIES]**

 **I put that here just in case.**

#12

First, Loki remembered a cave, his back pressed against a cold, hard wall of stone, and he remembered pain, bolts of unspeakable pain tearing through his flesh as purple flashes of lightning zigzagged in front of his blurry vision. He remembered the pain of fiery metal blades repeatedly searing his flesh. He remembered the pain of steely instruments stretching his limbs to their breaking point. He remembered the sounds of his own bones breaking, a nasty crunching noise reverberating through his skull. He remembered his body's desperate revolt against the anguish of dehydration. He remembered the cloying taste of blood biting into his tongue and the gurgling noises of his own drowning. He remembered how, eventually, the pain had robbed him of his ability to communicate, leaving him unable to transform any mental concept into words, and this had been the worst because passing beyond expression into a world of linguistic nonexistence in which terror defied every description was to leave any hope of rescue behind.

Then, he remembered the images and the voices. _Oh, the voices._ He remembered Odin glancing down at him as he was hanging from the Bifrost, his skin suddenly turning black and shiny and reptilian, his one remaining iris transforming into two gleaming pieces of hot coal. He remembered his father's black arms growing ever longer and ever more slippery, reaching for him and catching him as he was falling into space, wrapping around his neck like tentacles. _You are not going to get away so easily, Loki. I am not done with you. You will_ _ **never**_ _get away._ He remembered a blue-skinned Thor sending him flying across an icy, barren plain of rock, towering above him, a fifteen-feet-tall wall of muscle, razor-sharp icicles growing out of his fingers. He remembered Thor ramming those icicles into his throat, hissing, _Monsters have no place in Asgard, Loki,_ before hurling his bleeding body into a dead black vortex. He remembered countless versions of his brother, his face convulsed with rage and hatred as he decapitated him; sliced open his chest; choked him with his bare hands; stoned him to death. He remembered Frigga, too, his beloved mother curled up on a bed behind a curtain of almost translucent pastel green, sobbing in despair. _I should have told Odin that he was wrong to take you in. You brought us nothing but trouble. How could I ever think you were worth loving? You are a disgrace, Loki … Nobody ever wanted you, Loki … Did you really think you could have made me proud, Loki?_

He remembered His voice, too, and His face, which coalesced with Odin's face sometimes; an atrocious purple grimace with a golden eyepatch. _Resort to your illusions all you want, Loki, but they cannot conceal the truth: Not a single Asgardian cares about your fate. How many of them tried to rescue you? You are dead to them, dead._ A distorted, inhuman laugh. _Do you truly think this is suffering? No, Loki, you are coming to life for the first time. You are about to see what true power looks like. I will make you stronger and more resilient than you ever thought possible. Once you get through this, they will fear you. They will kneel before you. They will recognize they were dazzled by the same bright lure of freedom and self-determination that once dazzled you but_ _ **you**_ _know the truth now, Loki. Freedom is a lie. There is only pain, and more pain, death and more death, suffering and more suffering. That is the very fabric of life, the very fabric of this universe. True power can only be achieved through mastering pain. You will come out of this stronger than anyone you ever encountered and you owe it to me. You owe it to_ _ **me**_ _._

He remembered Hela as well, her voice fusing with that of the titan, as if somebody had split his mind into two entities, catapulting them into two different pasts, which were now miraculously converging, sending memories back into his brain, creating a hideous, horrific mashup of overlapping images. _Your agony is delicious, Little Laufeyson. Asgard would never have been yours, you measly tapeworm. How could you have ever thought to be able to rule this glorious realm? You are nothing but a flyspeck on the pages of the glorious history of the Gods._ Yes, he was back there, back where hope did not exist and sanity was far out of reach and he was sure that this time he would not return and that was fine because … _because what?_

A whisper came from somewhere deep inside his own head. _You do not have to stay here. There is a way out. You created your own demons, Loki, and you alone can defeat them._

Someone was shouting his name. He thought it must be Thor— _oh, please, let it be Thor_ —but the sound of his brother's voice was coming from far away, muffled, as if reaching his ears through a roaring ocean. _Is Thor real? Is he here?_ Then he felt a weight on his shoulder. Hands, grabbing him. _Are those hands here? Am_ _ **I**_ _still there? And where_ _ **is**_ _here, anyway?_

No, whatever here was, it was gone. He was in that freakish non-place that had melted past and present together into an ice-cold, rocky, purplishly-glowing sanctuary-cave-hel-dimension that had, finally, severed him from reality, from humanity, from life, from the cabin, from Thor, from the putrid essence of his accursed existence. It was just pain now. He was free.

"Hey!" Thor's voice was persistent. He was shaking him now, the usually pleasant monotone of his deep voice grotesquely butchered by panic. "LOKI!"

 _He is here. That means I must still exist._

"WAKE UP!" Thor's voice was raw with held back tears. There was more shaking and the death-grip around his shoulders tightened. "Dammit, PLEASE, wake up, Loki!"

He realized then that his brother was crying. Thor was crying.

 _No, that was impossible._

He had to make sure. Loki squinted, forcing himself away from the memories and back into the _here_ with the last ounce of mental strength left inside of him. He did not understand how he could still muster it, how he could still be alive and thinking, but it did not matter. Thor's face swam into focus. His lips stood apart, trembling. His eyes were wide open, glaring with fear. A single tear spilled out of his left eye and streaked down his cheek.

Loki panted. "Death … and suffering … the very fabric of this universe … that's … he … his plan …"

Thor was gaping at him, shaking him ever more violently, his expression one of naked consternation. "Loki, please," he pleaded, his voice breaking. "Come back!" He was holding on to him as if he feared that Loki might actually break if he let go.

And he would. _He_ _would_.

Loki felt the urge to relax his muscles and sink into his brother's arms. He briefly struggled against it—the dark part would be furious should it ever come back—but he did not have any more physical or mental strength left and that was fine because, suddenly, he found a very powerful sense of relief in the realization that everything he had been through had not terminated his existence. That he was still alive and _here_ despite all that pain, all that madness, all that horror; and that even though his blood was blue and his mind insane, he was still a person; a giant maybe, but still a person; and that he was strong; and that no matter what he did now, nothing would change that. Nothing would change the fact that he had lived through pain and torture so tremendous that it would have put an end to a lesser being.

He lowered his head, pressed his forehead onto Thor's shoulder and allowed himself to cry, and he did not recoil when Thor pulled him into a cautious and clumsy embrace.

* * *

Looping his arm around his brother's shoulder made Thor feel utterly helpless. It was like holding a newborn for the first time. He had no idea how to move or what to do with his hands. Loki's icy forehead was pressing onto his clavicle, his tears spilling onto his shirt. He was weeping bitterly now, choking on his own gut-wrenching sobs. The illusion of his garment was dissolving right before Thor's eyes.

"It's okay," Thor tried even though he knew very well that nothing was okay. _Oh, these meaningless phrases we throw at people in unfathomable emotional distress._ _Why do words fail us every time we need them most?_ Loki's entire body was trembling, so he pulled him closer, locking him inside a tight embrace that sent a numbing chill through his entire body. Thor had thought that everything up until this point had seemed somehow unreal but this—his intelligent, mischievous, defiant, and proud little brother crying in his arms, clutching at his shirt as if his life depended on it—felt as ludicrous as a drug-induced craze.

"You're safe," he whispered, as he suddenly understood something else. Yes, Loki was a mischievous trickster who delighted in causing chaos among those he claimed to love, but he was also entirely alone. He had been entirely alone ever since Frigga died; maybe even before then. It was not only that nobody trusted him; the worst part was _he_ did not trust anybody, least of all himself. Whenever something had bothered Thor in the past, there had always been someone to unburden himself to—be it Odin, Frigga, Sif, the Warriors Three, Jane, Tony Stark, Bruce, Valkyrie or even Rocket—but Loki had decided to suffer in silence, carrying the burden of his experiences alone, lest he be frowned upon or ridiculed for his lack of resilience. He had put on his typical array of masks—illusions, sarcasm, humor, contempt, outright hatred—to conceal his distress but now he had reached his breaking point.

Bizarrely and outrageously, Thor felt a wave of anger wash through him because his brother had never trusted him enough to ask for his help and his advice but he knew that this was not the right time. "You're safe, Loki," Thor repeated, absentmindedly stroking his brother's naked back until his fingers were frozen stiff. "I'm here now, we can fix this," he mumbled, repeating the words over and over again, unsure whether he said it to comfort his brother or himself.

After a while, Loki's horrendous bawling died down to a steady sobbing and a few minutes later, sleep was finally pulling him away from consciousness. Thor waited a moment longer, flexing his hurting fingers, before he untangled his arms and squirmed out of the embrace, gently pressing Loki down onto the couch. He did not even as much as stir.

Thor walked to the back of the cabin, where he found a small wood-paneled bathroom with a toilet, a black-framed mirror over a sink mounted above a wooden cabinet and a shower in the corner. He groaned with pain as he peeled off his shirt to inspect the damage. The skin on the inside of his arms and on his chest where Loki had rested his head had turned an almost black purple. He carefully touched the spot on his chest with his swollen, blistering fingers, but he felt nothing. He opened the wooden cabinet, looking for any type of medicine, but found it empty except for shower gel, toothpaste, a toothbrush, various make-up articles, some towels and a bilious green tube of moisturizing cream announcing in lean white letters that it contained ninety-two percent of Aloe Vera.

"Better than nothing, I suppose," Thor muttered to himself. He opened the tube of cream and squished the whitish mousse onto the blackened patches of his skin, cursing under his breath when his body began to burn. "Damn you, Hela. Damn you and this Infinity Stone and everything else." He felt tears clawing at the back of his own throat as helplessness overwhelmed him all over again. _Look at the God of Thunder being completely thunderstruck. I love the irony of that._ "I swear I'd damn you to Hel if you weren't already there, you murderous spawn of the devil."

He allowed himself a moment of weakness. _Look at the God of Thunder crying into the mirror of a deserted Norwegian cabin,_ he thought grimly, _weeping for a past long lost._ He let it all out and brushed away the tears with his hurting fingers before he tiptoed back into the cabin's living quarters, where Loki was now lying curled up like a fetus in the womb, his own arms wrapped around himself as if for protection, his hands tightly gripping his shoulders. Thor took a blanket from the other couch and covered his brother's emaciated blue frame before he took the communication device out of his bag, left the cabin and sat down on the two steps leading up to its door.

"Thor!" Valkyrie cried into his ear. "Where have you _been_? Why didn't you call me?" There were a lot of voices and rustling in the background. Someone was shouting, "No, careful with that!" Something clanged against a metal surface.

"I'm sorry, I didn't—"

She interrupted him with a snort. "Didn't have the time? It's been _eleven_ days, Thor!"

He opened his mouth to protest but then he remembered that he had used the Bifrost twice since he had left the Avengers Facility earlier that day—or what felt like that day, anyway—and that traveling across the rainbow bridge was to travel at a speed that defied the calculation of time used in any of the Nine Worlds. Apart from that, time passed differently in the land of the dead as well, which was to say that he had no way of knowing how much time he had lost fighting Hela or when his, or better Loki's, four weeks were actually over. The realization settled in his stomach like a wheelbarrow's load of uru metal. "I told you I needed some time to figure this out." _I still do. A lot of it, actually, but I only have nineteen days at the most._ "He is very … It's complicated."

"Did he try to kill you yet?"

Thor briefly thought about the icicles but decided it did not really count. "No, he's …" He broke off, staring into the night. This was all going so terribly wrong. "I'm okay, Val."

"And where have you been all this time? Wait, can he hear you?"

"We're in Norway," Thor mumbled, knowing she was about to protest when he heard her inhale. "And no, he can't. He's asleep." Another sharp breath. "I'll explain later, okay? Listen, about the Infinity Stones—"

"Yeah, about that," Valkyrie cut in. "Shuri called us three days ago. They did it. We're in Wakanda now."

"Is that Thor?" Tony was shouting from somewhere in the back. "Put him on video. I want a divine opinion on this."

"Very funny," Thor quipped but before he could say anything else, the connection broke off. While he waited to be "put on video," he thought about the plan that Tony, Shuri and Bruce had conceived a while ago. It was promising in theory, yes, but he was still doubtful of its practical effect and, not wanting to nurture false hope, he had told them as much. Before Thor had arrived on Wakanda to battle Thanos, Shuri—who was already a leading scientist at age seventeen and the most intelligent person he had ever spoken to—had been entrusted with the task of extracting the Mind Stone from Vision's body. Their plan had been to destroy it so it would not fall into the titan's hands; which was an understandable decision given the pressure they had been under but completely irresponsible in the face of the knowledge that these stones contained the fabric of the universe. Shuri had downloaded Vision's and, by extension, the Mind Stone's essence into one of her machines in the process and had now apparently managed to reproduce a synthetic version of it.

Shuri's name was flashing on the display of his communication device, along with the icon of a telephone receiver and a video camera. He took the call and her futuristic light-blue glowing workspace flickered to life on the small screen. She was standing in front of a surgical table wearing thick, steely-looking gloves, flanked by three dark-skinned men in white laboratory coats that Thor did not recognize. Virtually everyone else was scattered across the room as well but he could only make out their shapes, not their faces. Tony Stark was standing close to Shuri and her engineers, along with Bruce. Steve Rogers, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff and Okoye were standing back a little. Nebula was there as well and so were Pepper and Rocket.

"Hello everyone," Thor greeted them awkwardly. If he had known that he would be visible to the entire team, he would have put his shirt back on.

"What happened to your neck?" Valkyrie gasped.

"Just a souvenir from Niflheim," Thor settled on saying. He could not really see Rocket but heard him ask, "Niffle-what?"

"Niflheim," Valkyrie provided. "It is one of the Nine Realms; the land of icy fogs that is situated on the lowest level of the universe and harbors the kingdom of hel, gathering place for the dishonored dead."

Rocket grunted with disgust. "You really went to such a frosty, godforsaken place to get your b—"

"I can hardly see you," Thor cut in, unwilling to discuss the specifics of his quest in front of a group of Wakandan scientists.

"It's dark where you are, right?" Tony asked. "Just tap the projection icon and zoom. You have one of my latest phones, which is capable of projecting images onto surfaces and objects that have absorbed all frequencies of light."

Thor was not even sure if Tony Stark was speaking English. "What?"

"Black," the other man clarified, "the darkest color? Complete darkness is the result of the complete absorption of visible light. If you hit it with the right wavelength of light, though, it will—"

"There is a symbol on your screen," Pepper cut in. "It looks like a square with little fireworks around it. Just take your index and middle finger, touch that symbol and stretch it with your fingers, while pointing the phone at a dark surface."

"Thanks," Thor mumbled and followed Pepper's instructions. The almost unrecognizable image from the small screen manifested itself against the dark silhouette of the night, the faces of his companions finally large enough to read their expressions. But as soon as he could see them clearly, as soon as he saw that most of them—the exceptions being Tony, Shuri and Nebula—had nothing to offer except grim, suspicious stares, he wished he hadn't asked for an enlargement.

"So, you really build your own Mind Stone?" Thor asked with a mixture of unease and curiosity.

"Yes, we did," Shuri replied, a proud smile spreading across her features. She gestured to the stone, which was resting in a small metal case on the surgical table, glimmering in a faint purplish light, identical to the other seven in shape and size. "I took us a long time but we eventually managed to determine the stone's exact molecular structure, which allowed us to replicate it."

"But how is that possible?" Thor asked, trying not to sound too condescending. "They were created millions of years ago and they don't consist of anything that you can recreate with Midgardian materials."

"Replicating molecular structures does not necessarily mean to recreate something using the exact same materials," Shuri explained. "Sometimes, you can replicate a molecular structure by using materials with a similar molecular structure and modify them accordingly. Vibranium is quite modifiable."

 _Yeah, but not where the Infinity Stones are concerned_ , Thor thought but did not say it. Instead, he asked if they had tried to revive Vision, inevitably thinking of the day he had powered the synthezoid to life with his hammer. How comparably simple and peaceful his life had been back then with no knowledge of Hela's relation to him, with Mjölnir still his entrusted companion, Odin still alive, Asgard still standing and his warrior curls still unshaved. Thor was usually not one to lament the past but he felt a tinge of nostalgia as he recalled their earlier quests.

"Yes, but unfortunately, that didn't work," Shuri replied. "The synthetic synapses holding the stone in place were destroyed when Thanos yanked it out and we could not replicate their exact structure. Not yet."

"We built something else though," Tony chimed in. "Well, Shuri did, mostly. Remember this, Thor?" He picked up a scepter with a long steel-gray handle and a dark purple fitting encircled by pointy black blades, waving it in front of the camera. For the first time since he had come back from space, there was a sparkle of life in his eyes and it was mixed with admiration. "That's a vibranium replica of your bro's scepter to activate and contain the stone's powers. You called just in time to watch the test run."

* * *

 _Author's Note:_

 _\- I'll probably have to say that I was just finishing Stephen King's_ IT _at the time of writing Loki's flashback, which might have inspired some of the torture memories to a certain extent. Credits go to the undisputed master of psychological horror. I love you, Stephen King, with every fiber of my being. Oh, by the way, Hela calling Loki_ Little Laufeyson _is actually from the comics but I don't remember who said that to him and what the exact circumstances were. What I do remember is something going like,_ I see you still quivering in the shadows of your own mighty fathers, too weak to ever be your own man … You are ever the child playing at childish games, Little Laufeyson _. If anyone knows, which comic and issue I'm talking about, feel free to tell me because I, too, would love to read it again._  
 _\- And of course, avid readers that y'all are, you picked up on the meaning of Thanos' words to Loki in his flashback, both regarding Loki's (_ Hello mother, have I made you proud? _*sobs*) and the titan's future lines/actions._  
 _\- And regarding the whereabouts of the Avengers and the timeline, I should probably say that Tony Stark returned to New York after he came back from space and I imagine Thor sent Valkyrie to the Avengers facility with the Asgardian refugees when Thanos attacked. So, Thor also returned to New York while others stayed in Wakanda or swarmed out across the globe to provide emergency aid but of course, they stayed in contact._  
 _\- All in all, I have to say that his part really got to me and, truth be told, I had to stop a few times when writing this because it was really intense. I hope you felt as much as reading it as I did writing it. Cheers to everyone who is following this story or has favorited it or given me some feedback. I appreciate it a lot :3_


	13. I am needed elsewhere

#13

Seeing Tony holding up the accursed scepter like a trophy brought back the memory of his mother stepping before the royal throne of Asgard with a stern expression on her face about a year after his brother had plunged into the abyss of Yggdrasil itself. _Loki lives._ Thor remembered the blend of relief and disbelief he had felt then, remembered asking her if she was sure or whether what she had felt was an illusion induced by grief and wishful thinking. She had silenced him and Odin with a projection of Loki invading a research facility on Midgard, wielding that same scepter, his eyes alight with homicidal madness. He remembered his brother's feverishly pale skin, the deep circles under his eyes, his unwashed hair so greasy that it protruded from his head in single spikes. Shock and relief had quickly given way to anger when he realized that instilling terror in the hearts of innocent Midgardians was Loki's idea of taking revenge upon Thor for something that was not in the least his fault. The scepter had caused a lot of damage for a great many mortals since it had traveled to Midgard in Loki's hands and now Tony Stark was holding an exact replication in his hands.

"You remember that this thing brought you nothing but misfortune, right?" Thor asked sourly. "The last time you tampered with an Infinity Stone, it cost the life of thousands."

"So did Loki's last trip to Earth and you still brought that nut bar back here from Niffle-someplace," Tony shot back. "Which means you're not really in a position to lecture me or anyone of us about making responsible decisions."

"He has a point," Steve Rogers agreed.

Thor's heart sank. He had known that Tony Stark would inform the others of why he had abandoned the team at such a dark hour. He had also known that his solo quest would not be met with a thoroughly positive response but their grim stares of rejection still made him uncomfortable. He did not want to know what they would think of him if they came to know that he had offered his murderous half-sister one of their souls in exchange for Loki's. He felt his throat go dry at the very idea.

"I don't understand why you are stalling like this," Okoye cut in. "Why don't we get started?"

"I would love to." Shuri gave a nod of thanks. "Valkyrie?"

Valkyrie gave a curt nod and almost solemnly approached the table. Shuri took a step to the side just as Bruce took a step forward. Tony was holding the scepter out to her as if he was making an offering to the Gods and, in a way, Thor mused, this was true because she was the only being among them who contained the power of the ancient Norse gods within herself. Which was probably why they had appointed the task to her. Fruitless as he thought their task to be, he could not help but think that they would have chosen him to wield that scepter if he had not left head over heels to rescue his brother and he could not ignore that this realization stung a little.

"It is impossible," Nebula mumbled, dispersing his self-pity. "Infinity Stones cannot be built. They are born. Six of them have been born. You cannot replicate them."

"She's right," Thor said, mentally adding that there were in actuality seven stones, but nobody payed attention to either of their objections.

Valkyrie took the scepter with one hand and picked up the stone with the thumb and middle finger of her other, rolling it a little—just as Hela had done with the seventh stone—before she carefully inserted it into the fitting. The weapon flared up in a flash of faint purple and a ray of energy shimmered through the room but after that brief initial spark, the scepter transformed back into an unanimated artifact in Valkyrie's hands.

"I don't understand," Shuri mumbled under her breath as she walked over to one of her computers and hit a few keys. She continued quietly, speaking more to herself than the team and Thor could not be sure what exactly he was hearing or what any of it meant. "We downloaded the stone's exact molecular structure and the electromagnetic impulses that the stone emitted into the computer," Shuri was saying. She tapped on the keyboard and, suddenly, a nexus of glowing purple lines appeared on the screen. "This is a digital representation of our stone's molecular integrity." She tapped away— _click, click, click_ —and an identical nexus appeared on another screen, this one a gleaming orange. "This is the original."

"They're identical," Pepper acknowledged with a glimmer of admiration in her eyes.

"Their molecular structure _appears_ to be identical," Shuri conceded, an aura of frustration and defeat rising up around her small body. "But, unfortunately, they are not. Look." She tapped a few keys and gestured towards the two screens as if they were holding the answer to her unasked question.

Tony snorted in disgust, which told Thor that he was well aware what exactly Shuri was showing them. Thor looked at the others but neither of them made a move to ask for clarification, so he yielded. "Can you explain, please?"

Rocket mouthed a _thank you_.

"To put it in the simplest of terms," Shuri explained on a sigh. "The original was alive and ours is … dead."

"What was that flash of energy then?" asked Rogers. "If it is dead?"

"We built something like a kick starter into the scepter that would activate the stone's powers," Shuri responded, her eyes fixed on the screen where the purple nexus of lines remained entirely still. "The corresponding element is in the stone. Because we couldn't be sure how powerful it would be and if we could hold it without suffering any physical or mental damage."

"It's not that powerful, obviously," Rocket commented sourly. "If that one little swoosh was all it could do."

"May I?" Tony asked Valkyrie, gesturing towards the scepter. Valkyrie hesitated briefly but then handed it to him.

Pepper's hands went to the pendant of her necklace, clutching it nervously. "Tony."

"It's alright," Stark assured her as he inspected the stone inside the fitting.

"So, what did you think it would do?" Barton asked and then continued to list the Mind Stone's abilities he had witnessed when it had been in Loki's possession and he under Loki's control. "Blow stuff up? Manipulate people's minds and turn them into thoughtless soldiers? Open a portal to Thanos?" The expression on his face was sour, as though he had ingested rotten food.

"We thought that if the stone was used to access and manipulate the energetic manifestations of people's thoughts, it must have memories of it and its replication might allow us to access them," Bruce replied solemnly.

"In other words, this computer should be able to _show_ us what this stone … knows?" Romanoff asked incredulously. "What it saw?"

Thor thought about his brother's mental breakdown earlier that night and his chest tightened. They had no right to see this, neither of them did, and he was glad—selfishly so but glad nonetheless—that their plan was failing.

"That purple net thing?" Rocket asked with a nod towards the screen. Shuri, Tony and Bruce nodded in unison. "Okay, what _is_ that, exactly?"

"It's a digital imitation of the stone's essence, if you like," Shuri explained patiently.

"Its brain," Bruce added. "Or its memory, whatever you like to call it."

"The Infinity Stones have brains?" Rocket sneered. "Don't give me that crap."

"The real Mind Stone contains a highly advanced intelligence framework at its core that operates almost like a sentient mind," Bruce went on as if the rabbit had not spoken.

"And, as Thor brought to my attention earlier, both Loki and Thanos used these sentient energies to establish mental connections with other people," Tony clarified. "Which means that we might have had a chance to establish a mental connection with Thanos."

"You would have done that without me?" Thor asked even though he knew he had gambled away his right to be included.

"It's a great plan," Tony assured him. "Unless, of course, it involves Loki."

"We used the Mind Stone to animate Vision," Bruce mumbled. "Why did the stone react to Vision's synthetic vibranium body but not to the vibranium scepter? That doesn't make any sense."

"None of this makes any sense," Rocket pointed out.

"Well, Vision did not come to life until we uploaded J.A.R.V.I.S.'s intelligence into it," Tony speculated. "Maybe it needs a real mind to truly kick-start it." His gaze drifted across the room. "Are there any volunteers?

"For mind control?" Barton shot back. "I don't think so."

"It is probably harmless," Bruce mumbled and took a step forward. Stark tilted his head in an almost-nod and carefully raised the scepter. The other man stepped closer, a weary smile on his lips. Tony brought the tip towards Bruce's chest and tapped it against his heart. The others were holding their breaths. Barton inhaled sharply, his eyebrows drawn together. Shuri's eyes remained fixed on the screen but it did not flicker.

Tony heaved a sigh of exasperation. His shoulders slumped. "Why doesn't the stone operate on the same intelligence framework as the original if it is an exact replica?"

Shuri's lips stood slightly apart as she tapped a few keys on her computer. All the pride and zest for action had streamed out of her, leaving only the familiar sight of pain mingled with despair behind. Bruce shrugged and shook his head at the same time.

"Because it _isn't_ an exact replica," Thor countered grimly. He did not continue until most of them were looking into his general direction. "The Infinity Stones aren't made of vibranium or any other type of metal or mineral or rock. They are _not_ synthetic. With all your technological and scientific achievements, which I truly admire, you people tend to forget that there are powers in this universe you cannot even begin to understand. The Infinity Stones are of supernatural origin. They predate our universe and they carry the divine magic of their creator inside of them. They might be called stones but they are not mere _stones_."

Tony grunted with disgust. "You and your godawful magic." He paused theatrically. "Pun intended."

"The Gauntlet was real enough," Rogers noted dryly. "I touched it. There was nothing magical about it. It was just a piece of metal."

"Not just any metal. The Gauntlet was forged in the enchanted forges of Nivadellir," Thor started but then corrected himself. "Nidavellir. It is made of uru, which is neither metal nor stone, but something in between that is unique to the world of the dwarves."

"Like the Stormbreaker," Rocket offered.

"Exactly. My father's spear was forged in Nidavellir and so was Mjölnir and those weapons are, were, so powerful because uru absorbs magic. It is not just a metal. The Gauntlet harnessed the magic inside the Infinity Stones and so enhanced Thanos' natural strength."

"I knew it wasn't possible to build them," Nebula commented.

"So, this thing is useless?" Barton concluded with a jerk of his head in the direction of the scepter that Tony was still holding in his hands.

"It cannot be completely useless," Okoye countered. "There was some kind of energy when you put the stone into the scepter. Couldn't this have been a demonstration of what this replica can do apart from reading or controlling people's minds? If _this_ is the ability brought about by magic, maybe you still replicated some kind of power that isn't magical?"

"I doubt it," Nebula answered.

"She is right," Shuri surrendered. "The flash you saw was just radiant energy released by the fusion of the parts."

Thor had absolutely no idea what that meant, but he did not ask. The entire laboratory lapsed into silence. "It was worth a try," he allowed.

"I guess it's time you put _your_ cards on the table then, Point Break," Tony Stark sighed. "What's Loki up to these days?"

"We haven't really had a chance to talk," Thor replied.

"Where is he, anyway? And where are you?" Barton asked sourly.

"Norway."

"What, you're taking a little holiday?" Barton scoffed. "Family reconciliation, that sort of thing?"

"For me, it is still more or less the day I set off," Thor clarified and explained how he had traveled via the Bifrost. "We just came here and …" He let his voice trail off.

"And what?" Valkyrie probed.

Thor did not know how to begin, so he just blurted it out. "We found another Infinity Stone."

All of their features slipped. "Say what?" Valkyrie asked. "An _other_ stone?"

"It was long thought that the six entities that we now think of as the Infinity Stones came into existence with what you guys call the Big Bang, but it turns out that isn't true," Thor explained and then recited what Loki had told him earlier this evening. "They were created when the Goddess Nemesis ended her life and shattered her essence into those six entities, which have created our present universe. But her conscience endured. It is still here."

Valkyrie thought this over, her upper teeth pulling at her lower lip. Bruce and Pepper looked flabbergasted. Rogers, Romanoff and Barton looked suspicious, their foreheads wrapped in deep frowns. Shuri's expression alternated rapidly between curiosity and the reluctance to believe. Rocket and Nebula just stared. "And where is it?" Tony asked eventually. "Do you have it?"

"My sister Hela has it," Thor answered softly and then told them everything. Well, not everything. He skipped the part where he had offered his own soul and that of one of their mortal companions to Hela in case he failed to kill Loki with his own hands before the four weeks—nineteen days—were over and he did not mention Loki's Jotun form either.

"So, Loki died trying to _bind his spirit_ to the Space Stone?" Rogers clarified.

Thor gave a nod.

"But he was sucked into the dimension of this Infinity Stone instead, which was how you found out about the stone's existence when you rescued Loki from there?" Romanoff asked incredulously.

"And retrieving it from the Goddess of Death is our best bet to entice the other stones away from Thanos, thus leaving him defenseless?" Pepper continued, her eyes wide open.

"That's about right, yes."

"Gods, magic, spells, souls," Pepper said softly, her hand clutching at her pendant once more. "This is too much."

"Wait," Bruce chimed in. "Isn't she dead? Hela? Didn't we kill her?"

"I don't know," Thor admitted. "Gods don't die like humans do. Hela commands the legions of hel and she might be able to do so even after her physical death because she is linked with death and draws power from it. But I couldn't say either way."

"What about Loki?" Rogers asked, his face a study of contempt. "Shouldn't he know if he was … with her?"

"He doesn't know either," Thor replied softly.

"And you just take him up on this because he is such a trustworthy person?" Barton sneered.

"He has been through Hel and back, Clint," Thor countered. "Twice, actually. And, yes, I believe him."

"Good for you, I suppose," Rogers mumbled.

"He changed though," Bruce conceded. "A bit. His homicidal spark is extinct, at least. He helped save Asgard."

"And then took the Tesseract," Valkyrie added. "Which led Thanos straight to us, allowing him to kill most of the refugees we saved earlier."

"Yeah, that too."

"But he _did_ change," Thor emphasized. "New York was … That was not really him."

"So let me get this straight, you brought him back because you think he might be able to establish a mental connection with Thanos?" Romanoff asked. "The same mental connection that they tried to establish with the fake stone? And you think he will succeed because Thanos has established that connection with him before?"

"Among other things, yes. But more importantly, he knows more about the Infinity Stones than any of you," Thor explained. "Or me. And he can communicate with them, which we will need if we want to get that stone back from Hela."

"The plan is not bad," Nebula observed.

"In theory, no, I absolutely second that. But if Point Break's chest is any indication, literally anything is safer than enlisting Loki's services." Tony flashed her a weak half-grin.

" _He_ didn't do this to me," Thor lied but he knew that it would not make much of a difference.

"So he didn't attack you or anything?" Bruce asked. "Maybe tried to kill you?"

Thor shook his head. "No."

He read from Valkyrie's lips rather than heard her whisper, "He's lying." Bruce made a grimace.

"Is he sane?" Tony asked.

Thor inhaled sharply. "That depends on how you define sanity."

"Is he in full command of his mental capacities?"

"He's been through Hel," Thor repeated by way of an answer. "He is a little flustered"— _what a grotesque understatement_ —"but he has no hostile intentions."

"That's cryptic," Romanoff noted.

"And what are you asking of us now?" Steve demanded. "That we welcome him with open arms just because he may or may not be able to create a connection with the Infinity Stones or Thanos and disregard the fact that he could easily kill us or you if something pushes him over the edge again?"

"Pretty much, yes."

Barton hissed a laugh. "As if anyone of us would be comfortable having him here."

"I wouldn't," Shuri declared. "The safety of this nation is my primary concern and I will not allow it."

"That's fair," Thor acknowledged but then focused Barton even though he could not tell if the projection would transmit the movements of his gaze accordingly. "What happened to you though, to all of you? You were _so_ eager to give second chances in the past. You were ready to acknowledge Wanda's change of heart in Sokovia. You recruited her as an Avenger when you realized that Strucker had brainwashed her into hating Stark. You took her in, all of you did. Not to mention that you"—he turned to Steve—"almost incited a war over that friend of yours because you loved him and defending his honor was more important to you than anything else."

Steve's mouth gaped open.

"It truly baffles me how the two of you of all people can condemn me so easily for doing the very same thing that you did," Thor concluded.

"He kinda has a point there," Tony agreed.

"That is _not_ the same thing," Barton cried out on a hysterical snort. "You can't even begin to compare what Loki did in New York to what Wanda did in Sokovia."

"But I can easily compare what Steve did for Bucky a few years ago to what I'm doing for my brother now."

Rogers snorted a desperate laugh. "Don't you dare drag Bucky into this."

"Why not? You think him innocent because he was brainwashed and tortured by HYDRA." Thor paused for effect. "His mind was twisted just like Loki's mind was twisted by Thanos before he attacked New York."

"Loki knew exactly _who_ he was and what he wanted when he attacked our planet," Steve hissed. "He might have been under the influence of that scepter but he attacked us because he wanted revenge on _you_ , because he hates you. Or are you going to deny that now?"

"No, but—"

"Not to mention that he was very content when he opened that portal and you know it," Romanoff cut him off. "He killed all those people because it turned him on to have so much power over them. Geez, if the footage is anything to go by, he had an orgasm when he launched that attack in Germany."

Her words caught Thor unawares. "Ew!"

"I can't tell you how much I wish you hadn't said that," Bruce said quietly.

There was a long, excruciating silence.

"So, what are we going to do now?" Valkyrie asked eventually, her gaze traveling back and forth between Tony and Steve. "Are we going to take our chances with Loki or not?"

"What do _you_ say?" Rogers asked her. "You're one of the few people who actually spent time with that guy. Would you trust him to be on our side and help us?" His gaze traveled to Bruce. "Would you?"

Valkyrie considered the question, if only for decency's sake. Thor knew that she was going to shake her head and she did. So did Bruce. Valkyrie's expression was contrite and thinking of how her warm body had risen from the blankets only this morning, her lovely face framed by pillow-tousled curls, he felt a longing inside of him that threatened to eat him alive. Then she gave an explanation and the feeling subsided. "He's the God of Mischief. Chaos and unpredictability constitute the core of his very existence. I don't think _anyone_ can really trust him." She smiled weakly. "I'm sorry, Thor."

 _There is so much more to him that_ , Thor wanted to protest but they had made up their minds and considering he had betrayed them—one of them—so that Loki could live, they had every right to arrive at that decision. Slumped under the Norwegian night sky with a burning torso and a heavy heart, Thor realized with a sudden dismaying clarity that he had quite literally put himself into Loki's position. He had forced himself into a corner. By rescuing Loki, he had agreed to an impossible deal and worse still, he was lying about it now. He had endangered one of their souls and even though he did feel beyond guilty about it, he was keeping his lips sealed because they already mistrusted his motivations. Because they would, rightfully, loathe him if they found out. He had not even told Loki, even though he knew that if he truly wanted to get out of that bargain with no souls lost, he would have to draw on the cognitive resources of his brother's sly mind. Which meant that it was just the two of them now on the edge of the continent Midgardians called Europe.

"I know you don't trust him," Thor began. "I am not even sure if I can trust him but I know in my heart that I must try. If that makes you mistrustful of me, too, so be it. You will do what you think is best and I will do the same. We are not bound to eternal collaboration, after all." He briefly thought about their almost tangible relief when he had joined them on the battlefield of Wakanda but then reminded himself of Loki, who was currently lying curled up on the couch like a picture of misery.

"No!" Stark shouted. "Thor, wait!"

"I reckon our paths diverge here. I wish you good luck with your future endeavors, my friends. I am needed elsewhere. Farewell."

Without waiting for their answer, Thor ended the call.


	14. I missed you

#14

When sleep began to release Loki, his powers of recollection were failing him. His mind, still befuddled by sleep, exhaustion and terror, remained entirely blank for a moment. He tried to open his eyes but his lids seemed glued together. His memory came back in single flashing images, blurry at the edges, as they would come after a night's worth of drinking. The first image that materialized in front of his inner eye was the blue color of his hands. _Holy Shit, you are a Frost Giant._ The next image that came was of Thor summoning the Bifrost with his axe, bluish white lightning sizzling around him. His brother had rescued him. That was the only thought that mattered for now. Thor and Hela had come to an arrangement and he was free again. Alive again, more or less, and they were on Midgard. The Bifrost had released them on the exact same place where Odin had met his doom. There was a lovely irony in that. He rejoiced for a second, before the rest of his memories sped by, unfolding in a kaleidoscopic nightmare. Hela feasting on his conflicted emotions; his confrontation with Thor; his inability to shapeshift his body back into its Asgardian form; _you just hate me too much for this ever work out_ ; Thanos alive; the snap; the Avengers defeated; the deserted cabin where innocent earthlings had vaporized; his descent into the bottomless pit of his own twisted mind; the madness, the weakness, the brokenness, which had given first Thanos and then Hela the power to crawl through the crevices of his mind, to claw at the core of his very soul and send his mind into a spiral of never-ending hate, despair and pain.

But there was something else, too. Another memory that was slowly cutting its way through into his conscious thinking, like a dragon hatching from an egg. _If you want your brother to acknowledge that you are his equal, you need to take revenge on him, Loki. You need to subjugate Earth. Only then will he appreciate your greatness._

 _You speak true, Mighty Thanos_ , he had agreed while another thought had been taking shape somewhere in his semi-conscious. _If I as much as attempted to subjugate Midgard, Thor will come and stop me. He will take me home._

And then the last image came, still blurred by nightmare's confusing terrors, but sharp enough to recognize. He had fallen asleep in his brother's arms, crying like an accursed newborn. Loki yanked his eyes open and moaned in pain when he ripped apart the tiny splinters of ice that had glued his lashes together. Thor was standing in front of the counter in the small kitchen nook with his shirtless back towards him. Judged by the dreadful smell wafting from the stove, he was preparing a Midgardian meal, the rising sun outside the window casting a soft tangerine glow upon him.

 _How could you let your guard down like this? You are a hopeless …_ No, things are going to be okay this time. Loki closed his eyes again, savoring the feeling of connectedness to someone—something, anything—before he would lose it again. He knew that losing it again was inevitable. If Thor turned around, he would … _You know what he would do, do you not? What he thinks of you? Always has thought of you? He has always thought you weak and now you have given him proof that you will never be his equal. You will never be his equal, Loki, never._

 _No, you are wrong! Wrong! Be silent now. STOP TALKING NOW! I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE!_

The truth was, despite the fact that the prospect of his brother touching him had terrified and angered Loki in equal parts, he had still wanted it more than anything in the world, had craved it like a man dying of thirst longs for water. And when the hug had finally come, when he had finally felt as protected as he had in his brother's company as a boy, he had been at peace. _You will not take that away from me again, do you hear me? I won't allow it. I won't!_

Loki opened his eyes again, slowly this time, and cleared his throat. Thor turned his head and, strangely enough, flashed him an almost melancholic half-smile. "I put some clothes there for you."

"Thanks," Loki managed. Sitting up sent him into vertigo. He blinked the dizziness away, inspected the content of the bag his brother had placed on the floor and fished out a black long-sleeved shirt made of a very thin fabric and some sort of trousers that felt stiff against his fingers. "This is not really my style," he commented dryly.

"Well, if I had tried to put together one of your flashy black tie outfits before coming to your rescue, you would still be with Hela," Thor jested.

"All this time spent on Midgard and you still don't know how to dress properly?" Loki retorted as he struggled into the clothes in a half-sitting position. "I heard they have remarkable designers here."

"Do I look as though I care about designers?" Thor turned around then, a steaming frying pan in his hand, and Loki saw that the skin inside his arms and on his chest was blotted with dark, blistering patches. His lips parted in amazement. "What happened to you?"

Thor's smile died. Suddenly, Volstagg's voice rang out in the back of Loki's skull. _Don't let them touch you!_ "Did I …" Loki paused, his thoughts shooting off in different directions all at once. _Are you sure that you will not again bring pain to the ones you claim to love?_ "Did _I_ do that? I thought … well, I didn't know …" _I wasn't aware of the fact I can no longer touch people without hurting them._

"Don't worry, brother, it's okay," Thor mumbled and put down the pan, which contained white beans swimming in an unsavory red sauce, and gave off a nauseating smell. _What a heavy price to pay for a hug._

Loki's stomach lurched. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I didn't meant to—"

"I know," Thor interrupted him, fixating him with a mixture of compassion, despair and pity in his eyes. "It's okay. It'll heal."

"Don't look at me like that," Loki snapped and immediately admonished himself for the hostility in his voice. _Why are you antagonizing him? Why do you have to ruin it again? Why can't you just say thank you?_

"Like what?"

"Like _that_. Don't pity me."

The half-desperate, half-angry smile Thor flashed him in response to the clarification hurt even more. "How can you expect me not to feel sympathy for you when I saw you break—"

"Don't," Loki cut in. He tried and failed to smile but managed to soften his tone. "Please, don't."

"Alright," Thor replied, endlessly drawing out the first syllable.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, I don't know really. Midgardians seem to use it in different ways, depending on the overall context of the conversation, I suppose. The meaning ranges from 'let's do this' to 'I'm tired of your bullshit'. You just never know."

"What was the meaning of yours?"

"I don't know that either. A combination of both, maybe, as in 'Alright, if you don't want to talk about it, fine, I can't force you, but damn you, Loki'." Thor paused when he saw Loki flinch. "Damn you and your hilariously far afield thoughts. Seriously, you are such a piece of work and a pain in the neck and sometimes I just want to beat some sense into you."

Even though his brother's manner of speaking was rather peculiar, the meaning of his words was clear enough and despite everything, they made him a laugh. "That seems fair."

Thor joined in. "They are right. It does feel good to say these things." Then, he turned serious again, locking eyes with his brother. "Seriously, Loki, let us _talk_ about this."

"About what?"

"Everything," Thor cried out. "We barely scratched the surface last night."

Loki thought this over but, as far as he was concerned, all the important cards were on the table now. There was nothing he could possibly add to what he had already given away; at least not without losing more face than he already had. "I'm not sure I can manage more than the surface at the moment," he confessed softly.

Thor sighed but acknowledged his silent plea with a nod. He handed him a spoon. "Let's have breakfast, then."

"Are you sure this is edible?" Loki asked suspiciously. "It looks dreadful."

"It was the only thing I could find in these cupboards that isn't expired yet," Thor replied and slurped up a spoonful of the icky soup. "It's not bad though."

"Expired," Loki echoed before he surrendered, scooped up a spoonful himself and sniffed at it. The smell churned his stomach.

"Don't be so overly dramatic," Thor chided him. "I know I'm not a five-star chef but this is not as bad as you're making it out to be."

Loki put the spoon into his mouth and swallowed the soup before his brain had time to realize the implications behind the steam drifting up from the pan. He felt a spurt of flame shooting down his throat. He gasped; then coughed. "Are you trying to _kill_ me?" He flicked the spoon onto the table and flopped back onto the couch. "This is scalding hot! Do you ever _think_ , brother?"

Thor looked aghast for a second, stammering, "I'm—no, I didn't think." Then, his eyes narrowed. "But apparently you didn't either because you also knew this was going to be hot."

Loki tried to choke down the pain. He closed his eyes, put his palm onto his forehead and violently raked his fingers through his hair. _Holy Shit, you are a Frost Giant._ His brother's voice transformed into that of an annoying, shrill-voiced vendor marketing his products on the now destroyed Asgardian marketplace. _That means you cannot touch people without giving them frostbites. Your body is going to reject food. And the very best thing, you cannot cry without quick-freezing your own lashes. Are you not curious what else there is to discover about that new body of yours?_ "I'm sorry, I can't eat that," Loki mumbled.

"But you have to ingest _some_ thing."

"I really don't think so," Loki protested although he knew that his brother was right. His body was so weak that he doubted he would be able to stand up.

"You are completely starved out," Thor insisted. "Look at you. You have been with Hela for weeks. Your jawline looks like blades under your skin. You _need_ to eat."

Loki forced his eyes back open and cast his brother a reproachful look. "Say, do you remember Jotunheim, brother?"

Thor looked confused. "Of course I remember Jotunheim. Why?"

"It is a barren wasteland consisting of nothing but stone and ice. Do you actually think that the cultivation of any type of plant is possible in such a climate?"

Thor chewed his bottom lip. "Not really, no."

"Then you should be able to understand that there might be a possibility that Jotuns do not consume actual food," Loki concluded.

"And where do they get their nutrients from?" Thor countered.

Loki heaved a desperate sigh as the dark frozen wasteland of his birth planet materialized in his mind's eye. "There aren't _that_ many possibilities."

"Ice," Thor concluded. "Of course. Wait a minute." He went over to the counter, rummaged around one of the cabinets and came back with a translucent bag filled with little cubes of ice and a cylinder-shaped carton. "They had ice and ice cream, but I suppose the latter will not sustain you either."

"I suppose you are right," Loki agreed and took the bag his brother was holding out to him. He ripped it open with his hands and took a handful of ice cubes into his hand, squeezing them carefully and relishing their coldness. Eventually, he put one in his mouth, savored the sensation for a moment and swallowed it whole. He gulped down the rest of the cubes he had been holding in his hand one by one before he took out another that he did not immediately swallow. He sat there, Thor's eyes on him, sucking on the insanely refreshing piece of frozen water like a baby on a pacifier, while his brother was loudly slurping the icky red bean soup from his spoon. This surreal breakfast situation was a visible confirmation of the unbalanced power relationship that had bothered him for most of his life but, strangely enough, now that his body was so obviously that of a Jotun, it hardly bothered him. Loki was feeling inferior, yes, but for the first time since the devastating revelation that he was not Thor's biological brother, he did not hate himself for it because he realized with a sudden clarity that it was not his fault. He had been an infant when Odin had taken him. He had not chosen to be born to a giant. He definitely had not chosen to be brought into a family of Asgardian gods and raised among mighty warriors who would, quite naturally, relegate him to an eternal second place. All his life, he had wondered why he was no match for Thor and his comrades on the battlefield, why he did not seem to share their bravery and kindheartedness. But even after he had found out why—and still more so after he had found out that Thor also knew why—he had pushed himself even harder to prove that he was his brother's equal. Which he was not. Thor was an Aesir, born of two powerful gods, and he was not. He was a giant. Nothing more, but nothing less either.

It was not his fault then and it was not his fault now that Thor could consume actual food while he could not, and it was not Thor's fault either. If anyone was to blame, it was Odin and he was long gone. The dark part stirred again. _Are you going to forgive him so easily? You witless cretin. Are you truly expecting him to be as forgiving as you are? You can hardly think that he would ever be as_ —

 _I told you that you are no longer wanted!_ Loki hissed inwardly. _Be silent now! I am in control. I am in_ _ **control**_ _._

Thor pushed the empty frying pan aside and suppressed a belch. "Look, I know this is painful for you," he began softly, "but we need to talk about this. About Asgard and the consequences of its fall and Thanos and—"

"Asgard," Loki whispered. The image of the Realm Eternal wooshed into his head and he shuddered at the bittersweet memory of the golden city, once sitting proudly at the top of Yggdrasil, now destroyed by an explosion that had shaken the very foundations of eternity. He remembered the looks of despair and fright on the Asgardians' faces as they watched their home disintegrate before their very eyes. Then he remembered the distrustfulness and disappointment in Valkyrie's eyes soon after the shadow of Thanos' ship had loomed over theirs, her head snapping towards him. " _What_ did you do?" As everyone else in his life, she had immediately leaped to the conclusion that it was his fault. As everyone else, she had been right.

"I am sorry that I took the Tesseract," Loki apologized quietly. "If I had known that Thanos would find it so fast, I would not have returned to the ship and put our people in danger. I would have brought it somewhere else, even if I could not say where. But I just could not let an Infinity Stone burn. I could not be sure if … The entire universe might become unhinged if one of them is destroyed. I could not risk it."

"That I understand," Thor assured him.

A weak laugh escaped Loki's lips when he realized what exactly it was that his brother did not yet and would probably never understand. "This is about Odin." He snorted. "Of course, it is."

"Hate him all you want—and I know you have very good reasons—but he was _the_ most powerful being in the Nine Realms. The Odinforce could have defeated Thanos and you know that but you didn't even let him try although you knew that Thanos was going to—"

"I didn't really know," Loki cut in.

"Death being the very fabric of the universe?" Thor asked. "That's what he said to you. You told me last night. You also told me that you knew of his goal, what he was capable of, how powerful he was. You knew enough to stop him but you didn't bother to tell those who could have waged war against him before it was too late."

Loki gulped.

"I mean, _yes_ , what he did to you was beyond horrible and I know you came out broken and manipulated and insane," Thor continued, "and I truly am sorry for never giving this much thought before now but this is still no excuse to put the fate of the entire universe at stake. You came back to your senses after the Avengers defeated you. In retrospect, I know this because your eyes went back to their normal green. So, why didn't you _tell_ anyone? Why didn't you mention Thanos at your trial? Why didn't you tell father what really happened? Why did you accept your punishment even though it was not entirely your fault and just crawled into a hole?" He paused a beat before he quietly added, "Why didn't you at least tell mother?"

Loki laughed down the numbing pain of bereavement. "As if _you_ would have, brother!"

"I would not have accepted to be sentenced to a life in the dungeons if the fate of the Nine Worlds had been at stake," Thor replied with a touch of that old, accursed self-righteousness in his voice. "I would have reported this threat."

Loki felt the tears scratching at the back of his throat but he willed them into submission. "I am not going to listen to these accusations when I know damn well that you, too, would have tried to work this out alone. You would have battled your way out of the dungeons, killed all the guards and then set out to annihilate Thanos yourself."

"Maybe but it is moot to discuss this because I would never have been in that situation in the first place because …" Thor's voice trailed off, his eyes full of pain. "Never mind."

"What do you mean by that?" Loki inquired. "What situation exactly?"

"It's not important," Thor assured him. "Let's not—"

"Tell me what you were going to say, brother," Loki demanded. "And let me decide whether or not I find it important."

"Because I would never have let go," Thor finished softly, his voice barely above a whisper. "Sorry."

The dark part clattered back into Loki's head, breathing poison into his ear. "Of course not," he snarled, his voice transforming into that of it. "Not the Mighty Thor."

"Stop calling me that," Thor shot back. "We're past that now, brother."

Loki did not have to feign surprise at this. "Past what?"

Thor smiled thinly. "You're so smart and so perceptive figuring out everyone's motives but still you never seemed to notice that you only ever call me _Mighty Thor_ or _Son of Odin_ with that growl in your voice when you're in doubt about your _self_." He fixed him with an intense stare. "You admitted it. This has never been about me being Odin's son but about you not being his son. It has taken me fifteen hundred years, granted, but I am finally seeing through you. It's not _me_ you hate right now."

Loki flinched inwardly. _When did that witless oaf become so astute? You should not—_ "If you have dedicated yourself to humiliating me," he replied, pushing the voice out of his head, "you are doing a marvelous job, brother."

Thor exhaled a long breath. There was anger in his voice but it was the type of anger born out of sheer despair. "Why do you always assume that I mean to humiliate you? All I said was that I would not have let go but that does not mean that I think of you any less because you did."

Loki hissed a laugh. "Because I can have a moment of weakness but you can't? Now, _that_ makes a lot of sense."

"I did have my own moments of weakness during the past weeks, believe me," Thor assured him. "I crumbled, I cried. I cried more than once, actually." He paused thoughtfully. "But other than that, I never had to endure any of the things you had to endure. I never found out that I am a Frost Giant by birth. I never found out that my entire Asgardian existence was a lie. I was never tortured, tormented, brainwashed and rejected for things that were, if anything, only partly my fault. So yes, after everything you suffered through, I think you're allowed a moment of weakness, Loki."

Loki could not identify the feeling that flowed through him and instantly took the edge off all the agony and self-rejection that had threatened to corrode the core of his existence for the past years. He did not know whether this unknown sensation was gratitude, self-acceptance or indeed the sense of belonging his brother had promised him but it did not matter. The only thing that mattered was that Thor did not think him frail despite his outburst the night before. Loki looked his brother in the eye and smiled at him. Genuinely smiled at him. "Thank you."

Thor smiled back and nodded.

"I knew it was wrong of me to exile him the way I did," Loki conceded, "but I don't regret that I did it. His time had come. He was longer acting on behalf of Asgard and you know that better than anyone else does. If he hadn't gone mad, you wouldn't have come to me for help." He chuckled. "Oh, there's a lovely irony in that, isn't there?"

Thor joined in. "Oh, brother, I missed you."

"I missed you, too," Loki allowed. "And, in my defense, I tried to perform some sort of damage control. I delivered the scepter to you. I also sent you a vision about the Infinity Stones but unfortunately—"

"Wait, _what_?" Thor interrupted but before Loki had a chance to answer, the noise of a large engine roared outside, drowning out his words.

* * *

 _Author's Note:_

 _\- Credit where credit is due: I took the "to crawl through the crevices of his mind, to claw at the core of his very soul" line from the Annual of The Mighty Thor 2011 comic, where the Silver Surfer tells Thor that he "felt the Other crawling through the caverns of my mind … clawing at the core of my soul."  
\- __By the way, Thor made baked beans but to Loki, it was just a slimy tomato-y mess with beans in it and who can blame him, really? Eck. Speaking of food and what Loki can or can't eat, I thought about this for a long time and also discussed it with some of my friends. While Jotunheim appears to be a rather nice place in some mythology sources, where the giants are farmers and hunters who eat boars and stuff, most portray it as being pretty much covered in ice and snow all the time. That doesn't mean that there's no animals there who can be hunted and eaten. Same in the comics, where Jotuns actually prepare food (as in the recent Thor What If comic, for example, or #12 of the Thor 2007 comic where Loki and Laufey can be seen eating some kind of brown soup-stew-thingy from a bowl). But MCU Jotunheim literally consists of nothing but stone and ice and there were no animals or plants in sight either. In a random conversation that I don't remember in full, my dear friend Skadi then suggested to me that ice might contain nutrients for Jotuns, which is when the idea began to take shape in my mind. Also, in the third Magnus Chase book, the half-Jotun giantess Kólga eats "a meal of different colored snow scones" (p. 94) and, since she is The Cold One, the shaved ice seems to sustain her just fine.  
\- __Last but not least, try to imagine Thor saying, "Oh, brother, I missed you" in sort of the same way he said, "I wish I could trust you" in The Dark World, i.e. with the same amount of love but, of course, with a lot less desperation._


	15. Of Choices, Losses and Chances

#15

Thor's gaze flickered rapidly between Loki and the door as he gauged whether he was more interested in the clarification of his brother's assertion or the investigation of a potential threat. Naturally, his protective instinct won and he sprang to his feet, bolting out of the door before Loki could as much as blink. Without Thor's reassuring presence, the cabin seemed to shrink in size, leaving room for one single thought only. _Thanos_. _What do I do if it is Thanos? If he found me here?_ He shuddered. _What if he kills Thor?_ His heart leaped into his throat as he leaped to his feet and rushed to the door, all signs of exhaustion temporarily forgotten. He stood by the doorframe and peered out, his entire body paralyzed with panic. Thankfully, the vessel that had landed just outside the cabin was no spaceship but a Midgardian aircraft, the power of its engines flattening the grass. Loki breathed out in relief before he realized that the presence of a Midgardian vessel did not exactly bode well for him either. _The Avengers_ , he thought sourly. _Thor summoned the Avengers._

 _He lied to you, Loki,_ snickered the accursed voice. _I told you, this was going to happen, did I not?_

He cursed under his breath as he watched the back of the aircraft yawn open and transform into a steel ramp. Down from this ramp stepped Valkyrie, clad from head to toe in a tight black leather suit, her hair a mane of dark-brown curls wafting around her, Dragon Fang dangling from a silver belt slung around her waist. Iron Man exited behind her. Loki guffawed inwardly at the thought of facing Tony Stark even though he did not know why the man's presence made him so tense. _Performance issues, you know, it's not uncommon_. Loki forced the thought away. _Pull yourself together. You are a godlike being. You have been blessed with incredible strength and even more incredible wit, while he is a mere mortal. Incredibly intelligent and resourceful, but a puny mortal all the same._ A mortal who had not come alone. A blue-skinned woman with enormous black pupils and a cybernetically enhanced body stepped out after him, followed by a raccoon, which was probably the animal Thor had mentioned earlier, and a strawberry blonde human, whom he recognized as Stark's affiliate and who was dressed in the same attire as Valkyrie.

Thor was facing them in full armor, his newly acquired battle-axe dangling from his hand. "Val!" he cried out by way of a greeting. The mixture of surprise, disappointment and longing in his voice told Loki that he could not have summoned them. It also told him a lot more about the exact nature of their alliance than he would have wanted to know. _Ever the Ladies Man, aren't you, brother? You are so predictable._

"You thought you would get way _so_ easily?" Valkyrie shouted.

For a brief moment, Thor looked flabbergasted. "How did you find me here?"

"Is _that_ really your only concern? You bail on us like that and expect us to just put up with it?" She was standing in front of him now, jabbing her finger into his chest. " _What_ were you thinking?"

"You made your choice and I made mine," Thor replied firmly, making a half-shrug, half-throwing-away gesture with his right hand.

Valkyrie huffed a laugh. "And just what kind of choice are we talking about here?"

"I thought you were on my side. It turned out you are not and that's fine with me but you can't expect me to—"

"I was on your 'side'," she interrupted him, indicating quotation marks with her index and middle fingers, "because I falsely assumed you were going to bring Loki back so that he could help us. How was I supposed to know that you were going to isolate yourself in order to resolve your family squabbles while the rest of the universe perishes of grief?"

"This is not what this is about," Thor replied.

"It's not?" Tony Stark joined in. His helmet vanished at the touch of a button on his ironclad chest. His eyes, Loki saw, were tired and worry had etched deep lines into his once so careless, gleeful face. "You're acting like a huge selfish prick. You know damn well that we need you in this fight and still you dropped everything for your whacko brother. When did your losses become more important to you than everyone else's?"

Blinding out what was most certainly an insult, Loki tried to assess the situation. Thor had promised him that he would not have to face the Avengers and apparently, he had honored that promise by breaking off contact with them or trying to do so, anyway. He had turned his back on them and he had done it for him. He and Thor were reconciled—well, as reconciled as the children of Odin could be—and the Avengers knew it. He smiled to himself.

"He is my brother," Thor answered quietly, as if to confirm Loki's silent speculations. "I do not expect you to understand."

"Oh, I understand just fine," came Stark's hostile reply. "I understand just fine that you wouldn't have as much as called us again before making your move, trying to save _our_ world alongside someone you aren't even sure how to trust. The Infinity Stones might be divine artifacts, Thor, but this here is no divine kingdom. This is _our_ world, not yours, and we have a right to decide if we want to risk whatever it is your Asgardian ass is gonna be willing to risk."

"And just how exactly are you planning to claim that right, Tony?" Thor replied, his voice vibrating with anger and a little bit of contempt. He laughed. "Are you going to subdue me and drag me back to headquarters in a pouch?" He took a step forward. "Are you going to fight me?"

Stark inhaled deeply, his features twisting with what might have been pain or discomfort. A gasp escaped the lips of the strawberry blonde woman as she took an instinctive step backwards. Valkyrie's eyes narrowed. "Will you stop it, Thor? Just listen to yourself! He poisoned your mind against us and you are letting it happen!"

"He did no such thing!" Thor protested.

The blue woman stepped forth, raising her clenched fists. "No? Then why do you act as if you alone are entitled to look for the only weapon we know of that might defeat Thanos? We have a right to know and we will not back down. _I_ will not back down, do you hear me?"

 _Well, if this is not the perfect time to make your entrance,_ Loki's inner voice suggested. He liked this one a lot better than the dark part's snarl because it was not outright hateful but still mischievous and, most of all, it sounded a lot more like his own. Loki briefly considered trying to shapeshift into the Asgardian appearance they were familiar with but, apart from the fact that he was not ready for the disappointment, he presumed that his Jotun form would inspire a lot more awe in them than his humanoid whacko image—whatever that was. _Gather around, mortals, for it is show time_ , Loki thought, let the God of Mischief take over and emerged from the cabin _._ "Avengers? I think that's enough."

Valkyrie's features slipped. Tony Stark's mouth gaped open. The two women stood rooted to the spot. Thor turned halfway when the meaning of their shocked expression sank in and acknowledged his presence with a weary smile. The raccoon grunted. " _This_ is your brother?"

"What the—" Stark mumbled.

Loki descended the stairs, positioned himself in front of his brother's comrades and fixated the engineer with an intense stare. "Yes, this is my true form," he announced theatrically. "You may close your mouth now, Anthony Edward Stark." He stretched out his arms. "I am Loki, of Jotunheim, bloodson of Laufey, adopted son of Odin, all-father of the Norse Gods."

"Dude, did you practice that in front of a mirror?" asked the raccoon. Loki shot the animal a warning look and cast an illusion of three sharp blades shooting out of the grass in front of its feet. The raccoon stumbled backwards, its shoulders slumping. Thor commanded him to undo the glamour with one chastising glance.

"I don't believe this," Valkyrie cried out.

"I told you he was adopted," Thor offered by way of an explanation.

"But you never told me he was a Frost Giant! That explains why he is so—"

Stark chuckled in disbelief. "Regular-human-sized?"

"Slippery," Valkyrie finished as if the self-proclaimed Man of Iron had not spoken. "Giants are infamous for their intent to deceive. It also explains the frost bites."

"That was an accident."

"An _accident_?" Valkyrie mocked. "Yeah, right."

"Just stop it," Thor snapped at her. "You are in no position to pass judgment like this. There is clearly a lot that you don't understand."

Valkyrie's expression hardened. Loki flashed her a challenging smirk. She glowered back, mumbling, "You little _shit_."

"Seriously, can we go back to that Frost _Giant_ thing?" Stark asked. The strawberry blonde woman spoke his name in a tone that told Loki that she was not only his affiliate but a significant other who had advised him countless times not to be so reckless. He continued anyway. "Correct me if I'm wrong but why call them giants if they aren't, you know, huge?"

Loki took another step towards him. The woman grabbed Stark's arm. "Most of them are. Some grow as tall as a mountain but there are exceptions, obviously. Some do not grow bigger than you. Or me."

The engineer huffed a laugh. "Wow, you just can't seem to do anything right."

The blonde woman gasped once more. "Tony!"

Loki twisted his lips into a grin. "Neither can you ever since you created that peace program that turned into a killer machine and tried to erase humanity." He paused for effect. "What was its name again? Ultron?"

Stark's jaw dropped. "What do _you_ know about Ultron?"

"I know _every_ thing about Ultron. We were just talking about that, in fact," Loki offered, jerking his head in Thor's direction.

His brother shook his head ever so slightly, suddenly looking defensive and very uncomfortable. "No, we weren't."

"I was just about to tell you," Loki reminded him. "Might as well tell all of you. I practically handed you the scepter with the mind stone in it on a silver platter—twice, actually—because I assumed you would be intelligent enough to figure out a way to use it but no. The first time the scepter was in your possession after closing the portal, you gave it over to S.H.I.E.L.D instead of pursuing your own investigation." He narrowed his eyes at Tony Stark. "The second time, you tried to develop a computer program to create world peace that backfired on you." Loki chuckled. "Literally and figuratively, I suppose."

Valkyrie snorted her condemnation. Thor heaved a sigh and whispered, "Can you please try to _not_ dig our grave after I sort of put my head on the block for you?" through clenched teeth.

Loki mouthed his reply. _Where is the fun in that?_

Stark gaped at him. "I don't understand," he stammered. "You make it sound as if you wanted us to have it after the battle of New York."

Loki smirked. "Didn't you ever wonder why I just left it lying on the landing of your hideous show-off tower? Why all you had to do was pick it up and close the portal?"

"So, you're telling me you wanted that portal closed?" Stark frowned. "After you unleashed Thanos' alien henchmen upon the city? That doesn't make any sense."

"It does, actually." Thor gave an exasperated sigh peppered with a pinch of the familiar disappointment. "In a twisted Loki way, it does make absolute sense." He smiled vaguely. "And then what? You somehow intermeddled and stole the scepter from S.H.I.E.L.D?"

"I wanted you to have it."

"Why?" Stark asked. "And _how_?"

"Thought projection. And, a little confession here, I might have watched you from time to time. Ruling Asgard turned out to be quite boring, I'm afraid," Loki confided. _And lonely. Very lonely_. "I manipulated those two scientists into stealing the scepter from S.H.I.E.L.D and delivering it to Hydra because I knew it would never occur to you to get your hands on it as long as it was still with the good guys."

"You spied on us," Stark concluded. "I'm sure that's a violation of privacy."

Loki barked a laugh. "Tell that to your government."

The raccoon quietly asked Valkyrie whether she knew what this was all about. "Only a vague one," came her whispered reply.

Thor let out a long breath and shook his head at him, signaling him to hold his silver tongue. "What did you except us to do with it?"

"You knew how it operated on Barton and that physicist friend of yours," Loki explained. "I thought you must have known, too, that it operated on me, so I thought you might want to find out why. I thought you would be smart enough to want to find out who had been pulling the strings. I sent you a vision but, unfortunately, I could not fully intercept the power of the person who made your mind susceptible for mental alteration in the first place. I tried again, when you called upon the Norns in that cave but you did not exactly put the information I gave you to good use." He sighed. "Apparently, I overestimated your intelligence." He faced Iron Man. "Yours in particular. That was most disappointing."

"Didn't you say he was a changed man?" Stark grumbled. "Because all I see is the same old irritating megalomaniac that confronted me six years ago."

"You know what they say, Stark," Loki replied. "It takes one to know one."

Before the inventor could reply, the blue-skinned woman interjected, her enormous dead black eyes drilling into him. "That's it, I have heard enough! We all know you are not our enemy in this war, Loki, you are a victim, one of the many casualties Thanos left in his wake. So, can we please skip over the part where you pretend to be tough and brag about the cunning schemes you concocted in the past, and get to the point where you tell us everything we need to know in order to find the weapon that might defeat him?"

Loki narrowed his eyes at the stranger, irritated by her sudden aggression and the insinuation that she knew anything about him. "Who are _you_?"

"That is Nebula," Stark provided. "She's basically a key witness in your case."

"What _case_?" Loki asked, his confusion and annoyance growing.

"Oh, didn't I say? We're here in more or less official capacity," Stark declared solemnly, locking eyes with him. He accepted the challenge and stared back. "On behalf of the Avengers, we're here to determine your sanity and assess your eligibility for possible collaboration. And that's where she comes in."

Thor's lips parted in surprise.

"I don't see how," Loki snarled, his heart sinking as it dawned on him that his brother would want him to side with the Avengers. Yes, Thor wanted to help him and, for the first time in their lives, Loki believed him but Thor also wanted to save the universe and stand by his comrades because that was who he was. He was a goddamned hero. He would have turned his back on them for him—of that Loki had no more doubt—but now that they were here, offering to give Loki a chance, however small that chance might be, Thor would want him to take it. He would be disappointed if he spurned it and even though every fiber in Loki's body bristled at the notion of answering to a group of mortal would-be heroes, he knew he would be disappointed in himself as well. _Damn him_ , Loki thought. _Damn me, damn them all._

The woman Stark had introduced as Nebula locked eyes with him. "I am, was, a daughter of Thanos. I was there when you arrived at the Sanctuary and I know that you did not want dominion over Earth when you first stranded in his lair."

Loki flinched before he could stop himself. The memories of the previous night were still too fresh and he felt his self-control slipping. _Pull yourself together, will you?_ "What does that have to do with anything?" he brought himself to ask.

"Part of our inquiry is to sort out the whole New York mess, obviously," Stark provided. "Thor said you were brainwashed into attacking us."

 _Oh please, no._ He had felt vulnerable enough last night when he had realized that Thor knew but those insignificant humans did not need to know of the agony Thanos had put him through. They had no right to know. Loki felt the air streaming out of his lungs.

"And you were right," Nebula said, her eyes searching for Thor's. "Your brother was miserable when Thanos got ahold of him. The only thing he wanted was death."

Loki exhaled as he tried to force back the dark part and the identity-threatening memories all at once. _Resort to your illusions all you want, Loki, but they cannot conceal the truth: You are nothing but a flyspeck on the pages of the glorious history of the Gods … Oh, please, not now._ _ **Not**_ _ **here, not with them watching**_ _… They know how weak you are, Loki. You need to do something or they will prey upon that weakness …_

 _No, get out! Just go. I don't you need you to—_

 _You don't need me!?_ A sardonic laughter echoed through his skull. _Who protected you all those years, Loki? Who took care of you when no one else would take notice of you and your pain? I did. You cannot shut me out like that. You_ _ **need**_ _me! You need me to put them in their place!_

Suddenly, it seemed impossible to draw another breath. _No, I …_

"I think we've heard enough," Thor intervened by positioning himself between them like a two-hundred-and-fifty-pounds wall of flesh and muscle but Nebula was not yet finished. "Thanos implanted the wish to rule over Earth into his mind by telling him that it would prove his worth to you and, eventually, he believed it. Just like everyone under mind control eventually starts to believe the things they are told."

Her eyes were devoid of any emotion but her voice was so raw and so full of pain and hatred that Loki could not help but feel sympathy for her. The sentiment jolted the voice out of his head. It was getting easier to do so each time and he allowed himself to hope that, soon, it might be gone for good. Out of nowhere, a hazy memory of the cyborg woman formed in the back of his mind. Loki inhaled deeply, his entire body hardening with tension as he recalled her stepping towards him, flanked by two members of the Black Order. "You delivered the power stone to him when I was his … prisoner."

"I did," Nebula confirmed. "I was tortured by him and tortured for him in return. But I have long since turned my back on him and I do regret the suffering that I have caused under his orders. Which means we all want the same thing. You, me, your brother, the Avengers, we all want him dead and there is no reason why we shouldn't join forces against a common enemy."

A heavy silence crept over the Norwegian coast. The sun was climbing higher into the sky, stretching out its sweltering fingers. Loki suppressed the urge to groan as he felt his tight black shirt soaking up the heat.

"So, you actually want our help?" Thor clarified. Curiously enough, he looked rather tense and not at all happy about this outcome. "Because you really didn't seem to want it last night."

 _Did you hear that? He said 'our' help. You are wrong, you tainted, foul-mouthed weasel._

"I cannot sit on my hands any longer," Nebula replied. "If there is a way to avenge Gamora's death or bring her back, I must be a part of this."

Loki made a mental note to check who Gamora was.

"Apart from that, we get this much," Stark added. "You don't need us. You'll go off on one of your solo quests because that's what you've always done and will always do because, apparently, that's part of your job description as the all-Gods-father's son."

"All-father," Thor corrected.

"But Nebula is right. We need to be a part of this," Stark continued softly. "You can't just tell us there is a seventh Infinity Stone and then vanish to find it yourself and keep _us_ in the dark. Not even the Masters of the Mystic Arts know about that seventh stone and—"

Loki interrupted him with a condescending giggle. "Why would those sub-prime sorcerers know anything about an artifact whose existence has remained a mystery to even the most powerful of the Gods?"

Stark breathed out but he ignored the question. "And we need to know. Right now, this stone is our best and, let's face it, only bet against that genocidal shitbag." He paused, silently pleading with the God of Thunder. "This is our fight, too, Thor, and if you're not willing to do this without Loki, then I guess we're all in for one hell of a ride and that's just the way it is."

"I'm deeply moved by the vote of confidence," Loki replied, "but Loki very much likes to speak for himself."

* * *

 _Author's note:_

 _I just came out of my Christmas-induced food and booze coma this morning, took a two-hour-walk, let nature inspire me and polished off this chapter. So, Thor made his choice, the Avengers made theirs, now Loki has to make his! And aren't we all curious if he's gonna get over himself? And for how much longer will Thor be able to keep his secret? I will try to update once a week from now on, so that this story will be finished before Endgame comes out because I really, really, really do want my own ending to be written before the plot of the fourth film gives me any new ideas._

 _Speaking of what is giving me ideas, though, I recently read the Thor (2007), Fear Itself, Journey Into Mystery, Thor (2011), Agent of Asgard and Original Sin comics and while they didn't consciously give me any new ideas, they more than validated my interpretation that Loki is never really alone inside his head. And since this is the most fun part for me to explore, I guess I now have the perfect excuse, don't I?_

 _Also, please, please, please leave reviews. It would mean a lot to me. Thank you!_


	16. A history lesson

#16

"Just cut to the chase, Elsa," Stark demanded sharply. The blonde woman sighed softly. "None of us is in the mood."

Loki did not possess enough knowledge of the Midgardian ways to decode half of the engineer's taunts, but as a master of storytelling, he knew when he was losing his audience. He heaved a theatrical sigh. "Alright, alright. It is not as if I have anywhere else to go, right?" He looked at Thor, who was finally looking at him with an expression of pride. It was mixed with a tiny bit of uneasiness that seemed entirely uncalled for but the pride was there nonetheless and that was everything that mattered. _This is my chance of finally becoming part of something greater and more significant than myself and, I swear_ _by the Norns, I will not let you take that away from me. Not this time._ "I will help you, Stark," Loki clarified. "Nebula is right. This is my fight too and I suppose I have been running from it for far too long." He smiled thinly. "That does make us allies in this war, doesn't it?"

"I suppose it does," Stark answered quietly.

"What a shame I can't shake hands now," Loki quipped. "That would be quite poetic, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, shut up," came the other man's reply.

"Just so you know," noted the raccoon, "this pissing contest you two are having is more than annoying for everyone else."

"It is," the blonde woman agreed.

Thor's eyebrows shot up. "What _is_ a pissing contest, exactly?"

"Dude, isn't that obvious?" The raccoon rolled his eyes. "The more important question is: What's your _plan_?"

"We don't have a plan," Thor admitted. "Yet."

"What do you mean you don't have a plan?" the raccoon exclaimed. "What have you been doing here all this time?"

"I have been asleep for the most part," Loki replied. "Let me tell you, coming back from the dead is quite exhausting, both physically and mentally."

"So is worrying over an intergalactic sociopath that could have been stopped six years ago if a certain god-giant-brat had opened his mouth about having been inside his mind." Stark grunted before he jerked his head into the direction of the vessel. Loki flashed him a smile and mouthed a sorry. The engineer narrowed his eyes. "Alright, let's get back to Headquarters. Unless you do have any special attachments to this cabin, I suggest we leave right now."

"Let me just get my bag," Thor replied. "Well, _your_ bag."

Loki was not sure what could be in that bag that was so important but his brother apparently needed a moment to collect his thoughts, even though Loki could not begin to guess why he seemed so hesitant and almost awkward. _Probably because he thinks that you are going to make a mess._ Valkyrie and Iron Man entered the aircraft, followed by the two women and the raccoon. _I am not going make a mess. Not this time._

Yet, how could he be sure of that? He was the God of Mischief and Chaos. Everything he touched was bound to get messy one way or the other.

Thor put a hand on his back. "This time I'm not gonna say I wouldn't worry, brother," he whispered. "I'm not gonna say everything's gonna work out fine either. I'm just gonna remind you that you're not alone unless you choose to be." He gave him a gentle push.

 _Unless you choose to betray me and forfeit my trust. Again._ Loki glanced one last time at the coast of Norway, the former home of the Vikings, whose storytelling about gods and giants and elves and dwarfs had shaped the imagination of mortals for millennia. As a child, upon exploring the vast library of Asgard and devouring tale after tale of magical beings on their cosmic quests, he'd often wondered if there was a possibility that the Aesir only existed because of those stories, those legends, those myths. If they would die if humans no longer clung to the hope that they were not alone in this universe. He wondered now if their fading hope was responsible for Odin's death and Hela's return from the land of the dead. If mortals believed the destruction of their world to be upon them after everything that had wrecked their precious planet in recent years, could they bring it about simply by believing it? And did that mean that maybe, just maybe, the God of Mischief would finally get his chance if mortals started believing he deserved it?

 _Stop this nonsense, Loki. You are just feeling guilty_. The voice snickered inside his head. _Thor was right. Your actions led to Asgard's destruction and they will not forgive you. Just you wait, Loki. You will come crawling back to me if they reject you. And reject you they will. You know that, don't you? When has anyone ever acknowledged your attempts to make things right?_

 _Never but I …_

 _See? They will all reject you. Thor, the Avengers, Midgard, everyone, and what then? What then, Loki?_

He smiled. _It will not come this. Not this time._ It was true that those who knew him were usually rather underwhelmed by his conflict resolution strategies—and had been long before he'd unlashed the full power of the Bifrost upon his birthplanet in order to prove where his allegiances lay—but Loki also knew that he had never _genuinely_ tried to make things _right_ before. He would try now. Loki walked into the aircraft. Stark, his lady friend and Nebula were standing in the cockpit, so he settled into the seat across from Thor, who had slid down next to Valkyrie, and next to the raccoon, who stirred uneasily.

"I am not going to hurt you," Loki mumbled as he fastened his seatbelt. The last time he had taken a seat in a similar carrier, he had been there only half-voluntarily, captured by Iron Man and Captain America after a marvelously empowering encounter with a group of terrified mortals, with access to only half his conscious mind. The only thing he still remembered vividly was the mixture of terror and relief he had felt when he had heard his brother's thunderstorm rumble across the sky.

The raccoon grumbled. "No? Then what did you want with those damn blades back there?"

"Just a joke," Loki said softly as the aircraft took off, the steep cliffs of the Norwegian coast shrinking as the steel vessel lifted itself into the air. _Not this time_ , Loki assured himself silently. _This time, you will not sabotage your chance._ "I am sorry. Old habits die hard, I guess. So, what's your name? I suppose you do have one?"

The animal eyed him suspiciously. "Rocket," he finally said. He paused, examined him once more, and then asked if touching Loki's skin would really give him a frostbite. When Loki gave a nod, Rocket grinned. "Can I try?"

"Oh, I wouldn't," Valkyrie cautioned. "You saw Thor's chest. A Frost Giant's touch really hurts."

"The touch of a Jotun," Loki corrected her. "Please."

"So what happens if you hold a drink? Are you able to cool it?" Rocket went on. "Or even freeze it?"

The question came as a complete surprise but Loki had to admit that the workings of the raccoon's mind appealed to him in a strangely comforting way. "I never tried that before."

"Would be quite an advantage at a party," Rocket mused.

"Are you good to go, Friday?" Stark asked and a disembodied voice coming from somewhere inside the aircraft answered in the affirmative. "Flight time is eight hours and twenty-one minutes, sir."

 _Eight hours? This is a very long time to be penned in with all of them in such a tiny space_ , Loki thought grimly but there was no going back now. He was here, with them. He had offered his help and he was determined to make it work even if every fiber in his body itched to escape.

"Enough time to talk plan," Stark announced. "Or brainstorm. Or whatever it is we can do at this point. Friday, call the team."

At that, Loki's heart almost leaped out of his chest.

* * *

Tony's AI informed them that it was only four o' clock in the morning in New York City and noon in Wakanda but Thor barely heard it. All he could think about was that he had first encountered Tony and Steve on an aircraft like this after hurling to Earth on a wave of his father's black magic, entrusted with the task of bringing his brother back home. He had fought them at first but then they had joined forces and later become friends. So much had changed since then. He had betrayed their friendship and he could feel their mistrust and disappointment like an invisible wall isolating him from them. Valkyrie was sitting right next to him but he could almost feel the reassuring warmth of her presence cooling down and he knew that he was losing her. Had already lost her, probably. Everything was going entirely wrong. Thor had not expected that he would still be clueless about how to get out of Hela's bargain after racking his brain the entire night while watching Loki whimper softly in his sleep, putting his hands on his brother's blanket-covered shoulders every now and then to assure him that he was still there and that he was safe. He had not expected the Avengers to come after him. He had not expected Loki to agree so swiftly to aid them. He definitely had not expected himself to stand idly by, wishing they had not come, while they were pleading with him to reconsider a decision that his heart knew was right even though his sense of duty kept screaming at him that it was wrong.

 _Right and wrong, black and white, good and bad, moral and immoral_ , Loki had once mocked him, looking at him over the leather cover of a thick book in Asgard's library when Thor had come to call him out on one of his mischievous schemes. _These are manmade concepts. They are all a matter of perspective and should have nothing to do with us._ Back then, he had laughed into Loki's face. Back then, he had firmly believed in black and white. Now he knew that some things were just a hideous, blotchy gray.

"Wakanda is not picking up, sir," F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s disembodied voice announced even though it was obvious that nobody was answering the call.

"Try Banner," Tony commanded.

"I still can't believe that you faced Hela alone this time," Valkyrie whispered out of nowhere, as if the mention of Bruce's name had sparked a memory. "But then again, you would have faced her alone last time as well if not for him and me."

Loki flashed her a self-righteous grin. "Or me."

Valkyrie's eyes narrowed. "Correct me if I'm wrong but by the time you graced us with your presence, the battle on the Rainbow Bridge was already well underway."

"That might be true but if I hadn't made you remember how Hela vanquished you the first time, _you_ would never have been on that bridge either." Loki sneered.

Valkyrie's lips parted in surprise. Bruce's tired, unshaven face appeared on the screen. "Tony! Are you okay? Where are you?"

"Just set course for New York."

An incredulous laugh escaped Valkyrie's lips. "You tricked me," she gasped.

"Maybe a little bit," Loki allowed. "But I did it to—"

"To _help_ him," Valkyrie finished just as Bruce cried out, "Wait-what, is _that_ Loki? Is he … blue?"

"You didn't want him to face her alone so you made me furious enough to want to help him," Valkyrie concluded in surprise. The shadow of what might have almost been an affectionate smile scurried over her face but it was gone in an instant. "You slick bastard."

"What can I say?" Loki chuckled. "You'd be surprised how often my motives are, well, I wouldn't say _pure_ , but, you know, not entirely selfish. I am a good person at heart." His voice changed into a soft growl. "And yes, Bruce, as I'm sure you can see with your own eyes, I am indeed blue."

"Good person, my ass," Tony snapped.

"Is that how you … normally look or is that just another trick?" asked Bruce. "I mean, is that …"

Loki flashed Thor an irritated glance. "Couldn't you just have told them, brother? Do I have to explain to each of them individually that I am a darned Frost Giant?"

"A darned _Jotun_." Valkyrie narrowed her eyes at him. " _Please_."

For a second, Thor was convinced his brother was going to stick out his tongue but Loki just smiled. "You're a fast learner for a booze hag."

Valkyrie gave him the finger and Loki's face transformed into a giant question mark. Bruce apparently did not want to know what a Frost Giant or a Jotun was and for that, Thor was grateful. At least for as long as it took the scientist to ask his next question. "So, why did you hang up on us like that?"

His friend's disappointment tasted bitter on Thor's tongue. "Because …" He swallowed. Out of nowhere, he heard his father's imperious voice booming out in his head. _Do you swear to guard the Nine Realms? Do you swear to preserve the peace? Do you swear to cast aside all selfish ambition, and to pledge yourself only to the good of the Realms?_ He had sworn this oath so long ago and even though he had never ascended to the throne, he had always believed in it. _I will protect Asgard and all the Realms with my last and every breath, but I cannot do so from that chair._ Oh, what a fine protector of the Realms he had been when he had allowed the chaos unleashed by the crumbling of the Asgardian dynasty to spread through the rest of the universe. What a fine king he had been when he had led his people to their doom by heading for Earth. What a fine friend he had been when he had bargained with Hela. Suddenly, for the first time in his long life, he felt the certainty of failure and weight of guilt sit so heavily on his chest that he almost choked on it. And he knew that there was only one way to rid himself of it and that was confessing to the truth. "Because when I saw that scepter last night," he began hesitantly, "I realized something. This is all _my_ mess." Thor looked at his brother, who was frowning. "Well, Loki's and mine. We've done a lot of damage, so we should be the ones who make it right."

"What is that mess we talking about here, exactly?" Rocket asked.

"Everything." Thor sighed. "Thanos, the Infinity Stones, Hela, Odin's death, the fall of Asgard, just everything."

"Don't flatter yourselves," Nebula commented snidely. "Even Asgardians cannot mess up on such a grand scale."

"I beg to differ," Thor began and six pairs of prying, mistrustful eyes landed on him. "This all began when Loki caused my banishment to Earth and—"

"That was never the plan," Loki interrupted him with a quizzical, almost panicked glance that articulated perfectly what he was thinking. _What in name of the Norns are you doing?_ He then looked at Stark. "This was all a mistake. I had no idea our father would overreact like that."

"In any event, I was banished to Earth and in my absence, everything when downhill. Loki set the Bifrost upon Jotunheim, the planet we grew up to despise and—"

Loki harrumphed. "I don't see why you would want to tell _this_ of all stories right now, brother, but if you must tell it; let us not forget the small detail that I had just found out that this is what I really am." He pointed to his face. The Avengers' faces were a study in confusion. "It's too long a story to tell now, really. Suffice it to say that my mind went rather blank for a moment and I tried to obliterate my ancestors by unleashing the full power of the Bifrost Bridge upon my birth planet."

"Which I tried to avoid," Thor went on, "by destroying the bridge itself. Unfortunately, the destruction of the Bifrost shifted the balance of power across the Nine Realms, far into the worlds beyond." His companions looked still baffled. "Without the Bifrost, we could no longer travel across the realms as quickly as we used to in order to protect them. Once our enemies realized that we'd been cut off from the worlds and left them vulnerable, chaos began to erupt everywhere, especially Vanaheim and what was left of Jotunheim."

"You're losing them, brother," Loki pointed out, his eyes suddenly afire with malicious humor. To Thor's dismay, he looked almost amused when he continued. "Anyway, one of those enemies, and you might have guessed this by now, of course, was Thanos." He cackled but there was a trace of nervousness in the sound. "I ended up falling into space when Thor destroyed the Bifrost and, well, thanks to the cyborg, you all know what happened afterwards."

"Fact is, the only reason why Thanos attacked then was because he knew that Asgard would not be able to travel to Earth to stop his army," Thor continued.

"But we were there," Tony whispered in a shaky voice. If his irregular breathing was any indication, he was reliving the events that were the cause of his anxiety. " _We_ stopped him."

"Because _I_ left you the device with which to close portal," Loki noted on a chuckle. "Call it divine intervention."

"We did and he retreated," Thor talked over him so that Tony would not hyperventilate, wondering silently if there would have been a way to tell their story without vivifying that side of Loki that so desperately tried to antagonize those around him whenever it was in control of his conscious mind. "Like the coward that he is. Asgard rebuilt the Bifrost after the attack and brought the Nine Realms back under control. Thanos did not show his face again here until now."

"That is true," Nebula confirmed. "He brooded and plotted in silence."

"So why now?" Tony asked.

"Because Asgard went up in flames," Bruce concluded quietly. "And the gods were no more."

Loki nodded almost solemnly but Thor could feel that he was enjoying himself. Or maybe that side of him was enjoying itself and Loki himself did not gain anything from this. "And this was mostly my fault. I staged my own death, cast a spell upon the all-father and exiled him to Earth where he, unfortunately, withered away, which resulted in the liberation of Hela and her attack upon Asgard, which we eventually tried to halt by destroying it."

" _You_ got Odin killed?" Valkyrie's eyes widened. "So, the old prophecy did come true. It spoke of a Tangler that was going to bring Asgard great sorrow. That's you."

Loki sighed. "I really don't like that name."

"You got your own _father_ killed," Pepper whispered, more to herself than to anyone present.

"The man, who raised me, yes," Loki answered. "He had it coming." He flashed her a semi-devious grin that sent her stumbling backwards. Tony put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. "To be fair, my first encounter with Thanos was rather unpleasant and my primary motivation was to ensure he would not find me a second time," Loki backpedaled. "Sitting upon the throne of Asgard wearing the all-father's guise presented itself as a rather perfect avenue of escape. One that I couldn't pass up."

"And, in his defense, Odin had really gone mad, proving to be a danger for his own people, after—" Thor took a deep breath before he finally confessed, mostly to himself—"after I got our mother killed." Even though everyone stared at him with a mixture of consternation and abhorrence, it felt incredibly good to relieve himself of that burden after all those years of silent, subconscious blame.

His confession managed to break through Loki's facade. He swallowed. "No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did. _I_ brought the reality stone to Asgard, brother. I practically sent Malekith a dinner invitation."

"But _I_ told the intruders where to find her," Loki whispered, his eyes zooming in on him as if they were the only two people aboard the aircraft. "I told them where the Royal Chambers were because I hoped they would make short work of the old fool." He swallowed again. "And of you."

"Why?" Rocket suddenly cut in. "Why would you want to see your own family dead?"

"I did not want to see them _dead_ ," Loki protested. "I just wanted revenge because they left me rotting in chains after the, well, the unfortunate New York incident." He smiled ruefully.

His breathing still heavy, Tony Stark leveled the weapon in his iron glove at Loki. "Call New York an unfortunate incident one more time and I am going to blow that ugly smile off your face."

This time, Pepper did not reprimand him. Loki held up his hands in defense. The maniacal sparkle had returned to his eyes. "I wanted to see them hurt, that's all. And I was rather bored."

The others looked first at Loki and then at Thor with an expression of incredulity and repulsion that made his skin crawl. It was beyond Thor's comprehension how Loki could play his role so convincingly after he had cried his way through the night, trying to squirm away from the nightmares of death and torture, wriggling under his blanket like a snake, but it did not matter at the moment. All he knew for sure was that his former companions would not recognize Loki's crude humor and swanky demeanor as a mask or a strategy to deal with everything he'd had to endure. All they were probably seeing was a blue-skinned, red-eyed monster with a wild stare, a maniacal smile and unruly hair, who had just boasted about killing his father. Thor knew he needed to stop Loki from talking—Loki never knew when to stop talking and it always made things worse—and the only way he could think of in a hurry was humiliation. "He wasn't _bored_. He was mostly hurt," Thor said, "because I was so angry after New York that I never spoke another word to him after we set foot on Asgard." Loki glowered at him, and Thor formed a snout with his thumb and the rest of his fingers and snapped it shut. "The only reason we left him in chains, though, was because we had no way of knowing it wasn't entirely his fault because he never spoke of Thanos," Thor continued. "And he wasn't _really_ in chains. He had a bed and books and everything."

"So, let me get this straight," began Rocket. "You guys got _both_ of your parents killed and quasi single-handedly rang in the destruction of your own super-powerful divine race that you know could have stopped Thanos?"

Thor looked at the screen, where Bruce was staring at him as if he had never seen him before, and sighed. "That's about right, yes."

"With the benefit of hindsight, it was rather reckless to keep what I know to myself." Loki gave a sigh that transformed into another cackle. "And on top of all that, I gave the reality stone to the collector, who turned out to be a miserable safe keeper after all, and practically handed Thanos the space stone on a silver platter."

"I take back what I said earlier," said Nebula. "You _are_ responsible for all of this."

"Yeah, we all learned that lesson," Valkyrie assured her grimly. "If the Aesir mess up, they mess up on a really gigantic scale."

Rocket snorted. "You're really gonna tell me it's not unusual that half of our universe is toast because Loki is adopted and Thor was too dense to realize he'd been mind-controlled and both of them suck at interpersonal communication?"

Valkyrie shook her head and Rocket threw his paws up in the air. Loki giggled and Thor silently willed him to stop but, of course, he did not stop. Loki never stopped. "We're gods," he jested. "Butchering the destiny of mankind is sort of what we do best."

Before Thor could react, Tony Stark lunged at his brother.

* * *

 _Author's Note:_

 _I promised weekly updates but who am I kidding? They're probably not gonna happen anyway. I'm just too chaotic for that. And the information of what happened in the Nine Realms after the Bifrost was destroyed comes from the Thor Dark World Prelude. Well, I guess that's it for now. Thanks to those who started following recently. Until next time!_


	17. I know your colors

#17

Rocket jumped out of his seat when Tony Stark's iron-gloved hands grabbed Loki by the shoulders, his thumbs pressing into Loki's throat. "This is all one big joke for you, huh?"

Stark's sudden movement instantly dispersed the pretended joyousness of a moment ago. Loki squealed, an expression of panic chasing across his face. "N-no, I …"

Seized by a burst of rage he could not possibly hope to control, Thor sprang to his feet, his seatbelt tearing open across his chest. "Tony, that's enough!"

Loki had gone stock-still but Tony did not seem to or did not want to notice. Despite Thor's command to stop, he squeezed harder, pressing Loki against the wall of the aircraft. "Your humor is disgusting and disrespectful and if you aren't gonna shut up—"

"Tony!" Thor bellowed, his entire body vibrating with anger. _So much anger_. He was angry with himself because he felt ashamed and guilty and defeated and utterly, hopelessly, disgracefully out of control. He was angry with Loki because of his apparent inability to sit through fifteen minutes of inconvenient conversation without putting up a front that was bound to incur the wrath and rejection he was familiar with instead of making a bloody effort _for once_. He was angry with Tony because he had decided to give Loki a chance without reflecting on how much of a risk he would be taking and was now, to nobody's surprise, incapable of handling it. Thor was so angry that he could feel the power of thunder surge through his body. He grabbed Iron Man's arm and yanked him around. "Stop it now!" Thor commanded in a voice that sounded eerie even in his own ears. It was hoarse and alien, distorted with resentment, and it reminded him of Odin's voice when he had declared war upon the Dark Elves to revenge his wife's death.

"Make me," Tony countered in a similarly estranged voice, his eyes dead cold. Pepper stirred uneasily.

Thor uttered a roaring cry.

"Thor, no! _Relax_!" Bruce shouted from his position of safety on the other side of the communication system but it was too late. Before Thor could as much as try to bring his anger under control, a vigorous bolt of lightning whizzed out of his fingers and zigzagged through the enclosed space of the plane.

From then on, events followed in too quick a succession for Thor to tell them apart. Valkyrie uttered a furious cry. Nebula pulled Pepper down and flung them both onto the ground. Tony shouted, "Are you out of your _fucking_ mind?" The next thing Thor saw was that his lightning blast had hit the instrument panel in the cockpit. The communication system crackled. "Sir, the engines … compromised," F.R.I.D.A.Y. cautioned unnecessarily. "We are going … lose altitude … s-soon …" The panels started smoking and the screen went blank, cutting off Bruce's cries and the AI's mechanical voice. The aircraft tumbled in the wind. Tony punished Thor with a death stare and pushed him aside before he hurried over to the flight instruments, trying to rescue the aircraft. Thor caught a fleeting glimpse of Loki, who might as well have been a lifeless statue carved in stone. There was nothing below them but water now, and the plane was beginning to spiral downwards.

"We're gonna die," Pepper whispered. She had clambered back to her feet and was staring out of the windshield with a horrified expression on her pale face.

"We're _not_ gonna die," Tony told her but his trembling voice was hardly reassuring. His helmet materialized around his head. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., talk to me. Where's the next island?"

"There is no next island!" Pepper screamed. "We're above the Atlantic Ocean, Tony!"

The aircraft was hurtling ever closer towards said ocean's surface with every millisecond that ticked by. The shock at the damage he had so recklessly caused left Thor paralyzed. "Why did we save your ass again?" Rocket yelled into his direction.

Flames were coming out of the control panel now. Tony pushed himself off the chair. "Okay, we need to get out of here! Grab a parachute!" He pushed a button on the panel but nothing happened, so he used the energy released by his Iron Man suit to carve a hole into the ceiling of the aircraft.

"What are you doing?" Pepper cried out. "This isn't gonna work! We're gonna hit the water and die!"

"You're right! Too close to the surface for safely deploying parachutes." Tony pulled her into his arms. "But I'm not gonna let you die, okay, Pep, okay? I did that sort of thing before. I can get you all down safely! Come on, _now_!" A blast of energy from below his soles propelled them upwards through the hole. Nebula jumped out after them. Valkyrie scooped up Rocket and tossed the animal upwards through the hole. She glanced at Thor, aghast, before she turned away and heaved herself up.

Thor tightened his grip around the Stormbreaker and looked at his brother, who was still sitting in his chair, his seatbelt firmly in place, as if the aircraft they were in was not going to hit the surface of the water at who knew how many miles per hour any second while being devoured by flames. "What in the all-father's name are you _doing_?" Thor asked hoarsely. "Get up!"

"I don't see the point," Loki sighed, his eyes focusing nothing in particular, his face terrifyingly devoid of any emotion. "This is how it is always going to be. I am never going to fit in with them. So, why bother?"

"Why bother?" Thor echoed. He ripped his brother's seatbelt open with his fingers and yanked him up. "Because you and I have a lot to make up for, that's why!" He hooked his left hand under his brother's armpit and swung the Stormbreaker with his right, propelling them upwards through the hole Tony Stark had burned into the ceiling, barely escaping the flames that were angrily licking his feet. "I swear to you, Loki, you are going to help me clean up this mess! You are not going to bury your head in the sand now!"

"I think we are much more likely to bury our heads in water," came Loki's humorless reply.

A throaty cry bursting with rage and exasperation escaped Thor's lips and rumbled through the air, ricocheting off the water. _This is how it is always going to be … If the Aesir mess up, they mess up on a really gigantic scale … Why bother?_ "Seriously, why can't you _ever_ shut up?" Thor barked even though he knew how unfair that question was.

"Oh, this is _my_ fault now?" Loki mocked but his heart was not really in it. "Am _I_ the one who chose to reveal our family failures in front of your virtuous companions in a place with literally no escape? Am _I_ the one who fired that lightning blast? I dare say this is on you, brother."

Thor could hardly argue with that, so he silently watched Tony, Valkyrie, Pepper, Nebula and Rocket, who had formed a circle by holding each other's hands, and were safely gliding into the water to his right, the speed of their fall deterred by the energy released by Iron Man's armor. The aircraft below them was hurtling ever closer towards the water's surface.

"We need to help them," Thor mumbled as he mentally chalked down another failure on the ever-growing list.

"I might have an idea." Loki broke free of Thor's grip, dropped himself onto the ceiling of the plane and stumbled to a halt on the metal surface just as the vessel hit the ocean. Angrily foaming waves surged upwards, engulfing him in water. Thor screamed his brother's name. Iron Man rocketed towards him, yelling, "What the hell is he doing?"

"I don't know," gasped Thor. Below him, Loki was stretching out his arms, his head lowered in concentration, and the waves subsided around him as if bound by his will, forming a watery plateau that enclosed the aircraft and lifted it a few feet above the ocean's surface.

"I'm so sorry, Tony," Thor whispered as the full meaning behind his actions finally began to sink in. The water plateau was transforming into ice, creating an island in the middle of the ocean with the aircraft resting in its center, the flames ignited by his lightning quenched by the water. "When you grabbed him like that, your fingers on his throat … That's how Thanos killed him. I just … I lost it, I'm sorry."

A quiet, defeated "yeah" was all Tony offered him in response. Down on the aircraft, Loki staggered a few steps before he toppled over and slammed headfirst onto the ice.

* * *

Loki felt the power of the magic he had presumed lost sweep through his body as he mentally willed the waves into shape around him. He could feel it, too, prickling on his scalp and crackling from his fingertips like electricity, and most importantly, he could see its colors— _his colors_ —shimmering across the waves in bright flashes of emerald. He channeled all his concentration towards the task of creating an elevation made of water for Stark and his friends to rest on. He relaxed for the briefest of moments when his spell had fixed the water in place, breathing a sigh of relief and letting his guard down.

 _I told you this was going to happen_ , his worst enemy sneered. _I told you that they were going to reject you. And look for how long you have been able to handle it. Thirty minutes? Maybe less?_

"I won't even pay attention anymore," Loki murmured under his breath, trying to close his mind against the intruder in order to focus on the water once more.

Much to Loki's consternation, another voice replied. _You should_. It was the dashingly winsome voice of the God of Mischief. _Because It is making you miserable, Loki. It keeps telling you that you are unworthy of social recognition no matter what you do and this is the sole reason why you antagonized Tony Stark like this; why you always lean towards making people hate you; Thor most of all._

 _Excuse me?_ The dark voice burst out laughing and the sound clattered through Loki's head like a cannonball. _I am_ _ **protecting**_ _him! Just look at him! Do you think anyone is ever going to see him as something other than the abominable Frost Giant that he is?_ Loki smiled wryly as the water below him was finally beginning to solidify into ice.

 _Your wicked words are no longer wanted or needed, split-tongue. I will take care of him!_

 _You?_ That accursed cackle again. It was shrill and nasty and obtrusive; like curved fingernails scraping against the inside of his skull. _All you do is sustain his delusions of grandeur. He is neither king nor god and he would do well to—_

"Stop talking about me," Loki hissed through his clenched teeth. "You are both figments of my imagination. How can you even talk _to_ each other, anyway?"

Again, the dark voice laughed. _You know what they say, Loki. Crises bring people closer together._

"You and I have been far too close for far too long," whispered Loki harshly and curled his fingers into a fist, feeling for the strength of his magic. It was still there, pulsating through his fingertips. He visualized both of the intruders arguing in a room inside his head, which—painfully but not altogether surprisingly—assumed the shape of the cell he had been confined to after his war crimes against Midgard. The mischievous voice he had always trusted until now had assumed the appearance of his younger self, clad in olive green, with gold plates adorning its chest, a grass-colored cape flowing from its shoulders and the golden-horned helmet on its head. The other voice Loki visualized as an even paler, haggard version of his former Asgardian self, with unkempt hair and a fierce stare, its red-green eyes ablaze with wrath and madness. Loki focused on this picture for a few seconds, psychically transfixing his tormentors in the cell—rendering them motionless and, more importantly, voiceless—before he released a bolt of mental force into the room that made the cell explode in a color mash of orange shades.

Loki felt the impact of their disintegration like a migraine and, suddenly, he heard a million gut-wrenching, heart-breaking cries of agony, pleas for mercy and howls of pain, and felt so much misery, so much despair that it sent him staggering. The agonizing cries were replaced by a murmur of hitherto unfamiliar voices. _Who are you? Are you with Him? Do you wish us harm? Explain yourself._ As far as Loki could tell, there were four of them, each of them agitated beyond measure. No, there was a fifth. _He is not with Him._ Then a sixth. _I know your colors._ The voices kept talking, and their jabbering threatened to fry his mind once and for all. "Stop," Loki begged softly. "I can't take this anymore. I can't."

 _You need to_ , cautioned one of the voices. _You need to help us._

"Help you?" Loki whispered. "Why? How? And who are you?"

 _We have been compromised,_ replied another. _Everything is going to come apart._

 _Do not trust him_ , objected the first voice. _He was His agent. See?_

Out of nowhere, a swell of unspeakable pain slammed into Loki's body, knocked him off his feet and hurled him facedown onto the ice.

* * *

By the time Thor landed on the platform, Loki was trying to pull himself up again, panting. Thor knelt down and tried to help him up but he jerked away, dropping back onto the ice on his back. His eyes were wide open and dark blue blood was trickling out of his nose. "Dammit Loki, what's happening?" Thor screamed but his brother's breathing was so heavy that he could not speak. From the corner of his eye, Thor saw Iron Man helping the others onto the ice that enclosed the aircraft like the ring of a planet. "Loki, please!"

Loki wheezed something in response that sounded as if he was asking to be given a minute but Thor could not be sure. The voices of the others were coming closer and, unsurprisingly, they were arguing.

"… like with the water and the ice?" Rocket was saying. "That was awesome. I mean, what _was_ that?"

"You're seriously going to focus on that and not on the fact that Thor released a bolt of lightning inside a _plane_ and almost got you killed?" came Valkyrie's reply.

"Yeah, that wasn't so awesome," the raccoon conceded.

They were standing almost next to him now, with Tony talking to someone inside his helmet. "Yeah, we're on a man-made, well, Jotun-made ice floe approximately one-hundred-fifty-miles east off Shetland as of now. Of course, we're likely to be adrift or melt or whatever. I'll keep you posted."

Thor clambered to his feet and shielded his brother from view.

Valkyrie shook her head. "Just for the record, the ice isn't going to melt. Jotun ice cannot be melted by heat or even earthly fire. It can only be melted by the fires Muspelheim, so we are, well, good here."

" _Good here_?" Tony echoed, apparently choosing to ignore the reference to the land of fire. "You can't be serious. Look at this fucking mess!"

Valkyrie gave a half-shrug. "All I'm saying is that this ice won't melt and that no matter how long it takes for anybody to pick us up, we won't have to wait in the water and that is at least something."

"Whether you like it or not," Rocket noted dryly, "Loki just saved all of our asses." He peeked around Iron Man's legs. "What's wrong with him?"

Tony chose to remain oblivious of Loki's condition. He grunted his dissatisfaction and scowled at Thor. "Well, he wouldn't have had to if _you_ hadn't fucked this up. Seriously, Thor, what the _hell_ is wrong with you?"

"Not now," replied Thor, feeling his beard bristle against his skin.

"Not _now_?" Tony shouted back. "You crashed my jet! You put Pepper's life in danger! How do you expect us to work together ever again if you're setting fire to my plane just because I put your brother in his place? _Rightfully_ put him in his place because what he said was—"

"I don't understand what you want from me!" Thor yelled back, even though he was painfully aware that Tony was in the right and that he was acting like a monumental asshole. "I don't expect us to work together anymore and I think I made that more than clear last night but still _you_ came after _me_! If anything, this is _your_ fault!"

" _My_ fault? Did I set fire to the jet?" Tony hissed.

"I said I was sorry," Thor began but he knew that his words would probably act more as an insult than an actual apology. "I can't make—"

They all startled when Loki uttered a bone-chilling howl of pain, squirming on the ground, his face warped in agony. He coughed and now blood was coming out of his mouth, too. "Okay, that doesn't look good," Tony acknowledged.

"What is happening?" Pepper shrieked.

"I don't know," Thor mumbled as he squatted down again, silently cursing himself that he'd had to use that phrase so often in the past twenty-four hours.

"He isn't gonna explode, is he?" asked Rocket.

"Don't be stupid!" Valkyrie snarled at the raccoon as she knelt beside Loki. "He probably overused his powers." There was not a trace of resentment or hostility left in her voice. Her hand reached out and, for a moment, Thor was convinced she was going to touch the top of Loki's head, but then she pulled it back. "Do you have water or a blanket or _any_ thing?"

"No … blan … ket," Loki panted, his eyes still closed against the pain.

Thor damned himself for having the presence of mind of a sloth. "He needs to stay cold," he mumbled to himself and tried to scrape some ice off the ground with his fingernails but it was harder than granite. "What kind of ice is that?"

"Jotun ice," Valkyrie provided unnecessarily.

Thor rammed his axe into the ice and dislodged a few crumbs, which he smeared across his brother's face, trying to get some crumbs into his mouth. Loki stopped squirming. He breathed out and opened his eyes. "It's okay … I'm … okay," he whispered, still breathing hard. He tried to prop himself up again but Thor pressed him back down. "Keep still."

"It's just … my body … it's … burning."

"Dude, you're literally lying on ice," Rocket pointed out.

Thor shot the raccoon an angry look. Loki was tugging at the black sweatshirt he was wearing, and gave a loud groan when the fabric snapped back. He heaved his body up, supporting himself on his elbows. "Get … this thing … off me," he wheezed. "Please."

Thor obliged, ripped the fabric asunder and shrank back in horror. Next to him, Valkyrie gulped. Countless scars that had not been there this morning were marring his brother's emaciated torso like miniature canyons. They were zigzagging across his skin, about half an inch in width, and between two and five inches long, glowing in a sparkling purple.

* * *

 _Author's Note:_

 _\- Yes, Thor lost finally lost his shit. And who can blame him, really? His outburst was partly inspired by Joanne M. Harris's Gospel Loki, where she writes that "half the time, Thor has no idea of his power" on p. 169 and, a little later, on p. 170, "You know Thor; once he sees red, there really is no stopping him." I know that mythology Thor has a lot more muscle and even less wit than MCU Thor but the description still rang true for me._  
 _\- The "fingernails scraping against the inside of his skull" line is actually taken from the novel Runemarks (p. 306), also written Joanne M. Harris. Damn, I love this woman._  
 _\- And last but not least, "pleas for mercy and howls of pain" is a quote from the song Endless Appetite (Dance of the Vampires):_  
 _"So many victims washing on the shores_  
 _An ocean of pure tears_  
 _So many pleas for mercy, howls of pain_  
 _Intoxicating fears"  
_


	18. Family first

#18

Loki heaved himself into a half-sitting position and blinked several times to sharpen his blurry vision. He was uncomfortably aware of Thor and Valkyrie kneeling beside him and the others towering over him, seeing him in all his vulnerable glory as he tried to prop his body up with his hands, and, for a moment, he felt uncannily alone because no inner voice was commenting on his misery. Was it over, at last? Had he finally outmaneuvered the dark voice using a comparatively simple, if strenuous, trick? That could not be right. It had been too simple. Then again, every fiber in his entire body was jittering with the aftermath of mental overexertion. Which, he told himself, might not be the result of the mental bolt he had unleashed into his own mind but of the cryokinetic abilities that he had properly used for the first time or maybe even because of those other voices that had appeared out of nowhere and that he could not even begin to explain.

"That looks like he's radioactive," Tony Stark's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Seriously, _what_ is happening here?"

 _Radioactive?_ Loki thought and mentally forced his eyes into focus. He caught sight of the eerily glowing tissue on his stomach at the same instant he heard the cyborg's reply to the engineer's question. "These are power stone wounds."

 _Power stone wounds_. _Could it be that … was it possible that these voices…_ But Loki's brain, stupefied by the amount of energy released into his mind, refused to form a single coherent thought. Next to him, he saw Thor's shape move upwards, followed by Valkyrie's, who was holding him back as his brother lunged at Nebula, shouting, " _You_ did this to him?"

Loki's fingers hesitantly touched the glowing purple of the scars and he was instantly vaulted into a ghoulishly authentic illusion of the titan's torture cave. He jerked his hand back and the illusion started to fade but remained visible as a near translucent layer over the reality in front him.

"I did not," answered Nebula grimly. "I only delivered the tool."

Loki cried out, but even though he felt his lips open, he could hear no sound coming out of his mouth. _Come back_ , whispered one of the voices inside his head. _Come back and show us who you are. Prove to us that are not His ally anymore!_

 _I can't_ , Loki replied. _I cannot take this. This is too much._

 _You must_ , a softer, more favorable voice replied. _We must be freed or we will destroy ourselves before long. The universe will unravel._

"You _only_ delivered the tool," Thor repeated incredulously and then faced Stark. "So, let me get this straight. Nebula lied to me for weeks, withheld information about Loki that she must have known I would value. She assisted Thanos, too, helped him for so much longer than Loki did, she delivered instruments of torture and she did it _without_ having been brainwashed into it but still she deserves a warm Avengers welcome and Loki doesn't? Explain this."

Tony Stark guffawed. Nebula's eyes narrowed. "Brainwashing is not the only way to manipulate people, Thor."

 _You are the Infinity Stones_ , Loki whispered into his mind. There was an affirming murmur. _How is that possible? Why are you talking now? Why are you talking to_ _ **me**_ _? Why are you … hurting me?_

 _I am sorry Power hurt you, but she is wary. We all are but time is running out. You must regain your strength and you must help us because you are the only one who heard our pleas._

There it was; his chance at redemption. His chance to be a hero. His chance to save the world as Thor had done so many times before. There too was doubt. _How can you be sure I can?_

 _I know you, Loki, child of Asgard. You will find a way._

Thor and Stark kept arguing but Loki blocked out their voices and focused his attention inwards, asking, _Who are you, exactly?_

 _I am Mind but I cannot talk to you now. You must rest or else I will drain you entirely._

Thor was laughing grimly.

"Brother, stop," panted Loki. _We need to talk_ , he wanted to add, _there are more pressing matters at hand than whether they accept me or not_ ; but he had no strength left to form the words and they took no notice of him anyway.

"You do realize that this is exactly where we started out six years ago, right?" Stark scoffed. "We're back to square fucking one, fighting over Loki, with the difference that the nobody-touches-my-little-bro-on-my-watch-act was still harmless enough in 2012. There's a hell of a lot more at stake now and if you don't get your priorities straight, we're gonna lose and this time, it's _gonna_ be your fault."

"Stop it," Loki croaked again, a little louder this time, and got the raccoon's attention at last. Rocket took one look at him, assessed his condition and then shouted, "Guys! Don't you think it's enough already?"

He was so small that his head was barely reaching Loki's shoulders, but he had his arms crossed firmly across his chest and his determined gaze made up for what he lacked in size. "Look at you both! Our friends are _dead_ , Loki is basically cashing in his chips over here, but you keep poking around in the past and assigning blame instead of focusing on how to get them back! We all fucked up at one point or the other and, yes, Thor made a huge mess just now but you aren't completely innocent either, Tony. We kinda established that it wasn't even Loki's fault that he attacked New York—damn, you almost shook hands—but now you act like it's somehow _his_ fault that Thor lost his shit? I don't think that's fair."

Thor and Stark both stared at the animal in disbelief. Loki wondered what kind of metaphorical chips he could possibly be cashing in as he half-lay, half-sat on his first decent ice creation.

"And you?" Rocket addressed Thor. "You're just being a huge dick and miserable friend." He fixed Tony with his gaze. "You are, too, actually. Shame on you both for bickering instead of _doing_ something. I can't believe you're really calling yourselves Earth's mightiest heroes!"

Thor looked as though a burning mace enchanted by the fires of Hel had slammed right into his gut. "I'm sorry," he conceded, all color draining from his cheeks. "I'm sorry that I've been a miserable friend and a miserable Avenger but, in case that's what you want to hear, I'm _not_ sorry I brought him back." He took a deep breath. "For over a thousand years I have tried to save everyone in the Nine Realms; everyone except for my own brother." He smiled down at Loki, and for a second, Loki was sure he could glimpse the image of their smiling mother in the tears shimmering in Thor's eyes.

Loki gulped in response to his brother's shocking admission. Thor had never said such a thing to Loki's face and now he had even said it in the company of the Avengers, who were not exactly fans of him right now. And, this time, no urgent warning came from inside his mind in response to the relief and the happiness—wait, was that really _happiness_?—that he felt. It seemed that he was finally alone inside his head but despite the foulness of the dark voice's counsel, it was a rather strange feeling to be so utterly without guidance.

Stark's strained features smoothened a little. "I'm glad we got that out of the way," he mumbled with no trace of aggressiveness left in his voice. He even squatted down next to Thor. "Now, there's a few other people _we_ want to save as well."

"And we will," said Thor, looking at the engineer. "Together. This I promise you."

"Great," Rocket sniffed. "Now, would someone pick me up, please? My paws are fucking freezing."

Valkyrie obliged, then turned towards Loki. "So, what do these power stone wounds really mean? Why are they glowing now after all this time? It looks like they have been, for want of a better word, _activated_ somehow."

"They … have," said Loki softly, not trusting his own voice. "They're … talking." He scrambled into an upright position and looped his arms around his knees but the movement caused him to sway, his vision blurring again. He supported himself against the ground with his left hand and buried his head in his right to prevent the world from spinning off its axis around him.

"What do you mean they're talking?" asked Rocket. "First, they have brains and now they're _talking_?"

"Talking how? Inside your _head_?" asked Stark. "Like a hallucination?"

"Hallucinations don't cause physical wounds, Tony," replied the blonde woman whom the others had referred to as Pepper.

 _Be still, Loki_ , said the Mind Stone. _You must rest now._

"Loki," said Thor anxiously.

 _I cannot possibly rest now,_ Loki protested as another explanation for the sudden presence of the Infinity Stones crossed his mind. What if the voices truly were just another illusion? Another delusion? What if Thanos had found out he was still alive and was trying to lure him into a trap? He flinched inwardly as he remembered the titan's giant gauntlet-gloved hand around his neck, his foul breath on his cheeks as the life was streaming out of him. _Your optimism is misplaced, Asgardian._ Was it? It had to be. Why would the key to saving the universe lie inside the deranged mind of Loki, spawn of a monster, disappointment of the Asgardian pantheon?

 _Rest now_ , repeated the Mind Stone. _Rest now and I will give you the answers you seek._ Loki felt his consciousness being snatched from him and he longed to give in to the pull; longed for the soothing of a dreamless sleep and the protective membrane of complete mental vacuity.

"Loki, what is happening?" Thor asked, his voice coming from far, far away.

"He's passing out," Valkyrie replied. Or maybe it was someone else. Maybe it was the woman who bore the name of a Midgardian spice.

"I'm sorry," Loki apologized even though, in truth, he was not sorry. In truth, he could no longer bring himself to care what either of the Avengers or even Thor would think of him if he fainted now _. Let them endure a fraction of what is going on in my mind and see how they fare_ , he thought as he let himself sink into the arms of oblivion, whispering, "I … I need … a moment."

* * *

The _moment_ Loki needed to regain his strength unfortunately extended over a period of almost fourteen hours, the first of which Iron Man spent trying to contact various members of various organizations of which Thor had absolutely no knowledge. Pepper, Valkyrie and Nebula debated on how to help Loki regain consciousness but quickly had to admit that no amount of Midgardian medicine could possibly provide aid for inexplicable magical wounds or mental overexertion following the use of witchcraft. Not that they _had_ any medicine to begin with. They had a few supplies, which Nebula and Rocket set out to retrieve from the wreckage, but other than that, they were stranded in the middle of the ocean, waiting for help. Nebula and Rocket came back with a few bottles of water, a few bags of savory snacks and a few half-torched blankets, which was all the jet had to offer them for comfort.

"Okay, you can light it up for real now," announced Rocket grimly.

Iron Man put his call on hold and looked at Valkyrie, who gave him her blessing with a curt nod, and then ignited the aircraft with an energy blast released by his armor so that his friends would stay warm. Despite Valkyrie's repeated assertions that Midgardian fire could not possibly melt Jotun ice, Thor found himself surprised that not a single ice crystal melted when the jet burst into flames a second time.

The next hour Thor spent brooding over how _little_ he actually knew about either Frost Giants or his brother's abilities to manipulate magical forces, cursing himself that he had never paid attention to what Frigga had taught Loki when he'd had the chance. He remembered one incident in their childhood when Loki had taken his seat at the feast, his face pale and glistering with sweat. He had barely been able to pick up his fork before he slumped facedown into a plate full of wild boar. "He has been practicing too hard," Frigga had explained. "Do not teach him more than he can handle," Odin had cautioned and Thor had wondered what that could mean for maybe half a minute before he had dug into his own meal. Being his father's son, Thor had never paid an awful lot of attention to the art of spellcraft and shrugged Loki's magic off as a secondary aptitude at best; something Rocket would be likely to refer to as a party trick now; a talent that might have been fancy but would never be as valuable a skill for a warrior and prince of Asgard as muscle strength and gladiatorial prowess. Thor realized that he had absolutely no way of knowing how his brother's use of magic could possibly connect him to the Infinity Stones—a connection that was as peculiar as it was undeniable in the face of the now slowly fading scars of the power stone wounds on his torso—or why exactly Loki remained in such a poor physical condition. At first, Thor had assumed it was because Hela's torture and his nightmares had drained him. Then, he had figured it was because Loki's body was still adjusting to its Jotun form or because his Jotun form could not handle the use of magic like his Asgardian form.

Thor cringed involuntarily as it gradually began to sink in that his brother's appearance was not temporary. This was no mischievous trick; no illusion; no mind game like the various animals he used to turn himself into or the guise of their father he had taken. This was definite, permanent. It was _real_. He shoved the thought away.

Now, after Loki had seemed at least somewhat reinvigorated after his breakfast of ice cubes—by Hel, he had willed the ocean into shape and created an ice island of at least thirty feet in diameter—Thor figured that his present exhaustion had little to do with his exhaustion of the night before. Loki had collapsed because of the Infinity Stones had, yeah, had _what_ exactly? Loki had told him the night before that he could feel the stones revolting against the iniquity Thanos had committed with them and now he had confirmed that something had somehow activated the stones; that they had been talking to him. Even though Thor knew—and had even tried to explain as much to the Avengers—that the stones were of supernatural origin and carried the divine magic of their creator inside of them, he still had no idea how they could have possibly connected to Loki while he was using his magic. He had no idea how these wounds could possibly have emerged on his brother's body now. Except, of course, this was the doing of Thanos, in which case they could not waste any more time.

Thor grumbled in quiet frustration. He tried to wake Loki once again but his brother didn't as much as stir beneath his grasp. Thor had considered using the Stormbreaker to fly Loki back to New York and consult the Masters of the Mystic Arts. Yet, while he was sure that his armor would protect him against his brother's Jotun skin, Thor did not dare to ensign his brother to the care of a bunch of Midgardian wizards because he had no way of assessing the consequences of their spells. He had also considered using the Bifrost to teleport Loki to safety, of course, but apart from the fact that he did not have the faintest idea of where to take him, he could not afford to lose any more time. Thor heaved a sigh when he remembered that there was one last confession he had to make and how could he possibly do that now? How could he possibly admit to having bargained with Hela after Tony and the others had already lost all faith in his friendship? Still, he knew he had to tell them at some point. He needed to tell Loki, at the very least, because Loki was the only one who knew anything about that seventh stone. Loki was the only one who could figure this out and if he did not regain his strength any time soon, they would all be doomed. _He will regain his strength_ , Thor told himself. _Don't be stupid. He is stronger than you ever thought he could be. You'll just need to give him some time. And, most of all, you'll have to break to him gently._ Which was sort of the problem. Thor had never exactly exceled in empathy and gentleness. He was more the bull-at-a-gate type of person.

And so the hours crept by, filling his heart with ever more despair, ever more guilt, ever more trepidation. At some point, Valkyrie came to sit beside him with a wan smile upon her lips. "So, I guess, we're done, huh?"

"I don't know," Thor murmured, staring into the distance. "Are we?"

"I don't even recognize you anymore, Thor," Valkyrie replied softly. "I actually have no idea know who you are. It's like you're a completely different person than you were two weeks ago; almost as if you were—" She stopped herself.

Thor flashed her at sad smile. "It's alright, you can say it."

She shook her head. "No, I didn't mean what I was going to say."

"Almost as if I were my father," Thor finished for her. "You're right." He paused briefly, then whispered, "I had him, Val." He looked down at the hands that had felt the reassuring weight of the Stormbreaker before he had attacked Thanos and then slammed the accursed axe into the titan's chest. "I was holding the weapon that could have cut Thanos' wretched head from his miserable shoulders and I failed and why? Because I wanted to see him _suffer_. Because I wanted to look inside his eyes and see the agony of death there after I had to watch Loki choke to death." A tear rolled down his cheek, tickling his skin. Thor wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "Because I was blind and mad with rage and a thirst for vengeance. Just like my father was when he sentenced the whole of Asgard to death to avenge my mother's death."

Valkyrie's hand touched his for the first time since they had parted. "Thor, no. Odin was different. He would have sacrificed—"

"No," Thor interrupted her and cleared his throat. "Do you want to know why I almost ended up like my father? Because Odin always put his family last until it was too late and I did the exact same thing for years. For _centuries_. I always put Loki last, _always_ , until it finally was too late."

Thor could see it clearly now. When he had thought Loki dead those two times before, he had never mourned him as much as this last time because he'd never had to deal with his own feelings, let alone is own mistakes. He'd always had Asgard, his parents or his friends supporting him, caring for him, loving him. And when he _had_ missed the company of his smart, sassy, annoying little brother occasionally, he'd simply tried to remind himself of all the mischief and mayhem Loki had caused, of all the tears Frigga had wept for him and of all the creases that his misguided journey to Midgard had etched into Odin's face. It wasn't until after Thor himself had lost nearly everything that he'd understood just how much he'd taken Loki's company for granted all those years; how he'd never shown much emotion; not even when it had been glaringly obvious that his brother's sanity depended on his esteem. And when he'd finally realized how much he'd wronged Loki, he had made a series of snap decisions in order to provide remedy for years of wayward brotherhood, which, so far, had benefitted no one and had entangled him ever more inextricably in a web of lies.

"Last night, I saw what Thanos did to him," Thor whispered, his fingers absentmindedly twisting one of Loki's entangled curls. "I made him remember, made him live through the memories of torture all over again, and I saw the terror in his eyes." He paused, sniveling. "Loki needs me, Valkyrie. He doesn't have anyone else." He paused again. "He's always needed me but I've never been there and the worst thing is that none of us would be here right now if I had. From now on, I'm going to put my family first and if that means that I am going to lose everyone else in the long run, even you, well, I'm willing to risk that."

Valkyrie smiled. "You're not like your father, Thor," she replied softly. "You never will be. You have a heart."

"Thank you," Thor whispered, even though he could not bring himself to believe that she truly meant it.

"But, let's be honest. If we, against all odds, survive this war, do you really think you can make this work?" She gestured towards Loki. "Do you really think that you can fix this?"

"I will try."

"I know," Valkyrie assured him. "Believe me, I do. But that's not what I asked."

Thor had nothing to say to that and so they lapsed back into silence, until, after about two hours later, the remaining Avengers finally arrived in a gleaming black Wakandan high-speed jet.

* * *

 _Author's Note:_

 _\- Okay, it took me forever to edit this into a publishable version and I'm still not quite satisfied but, eh, what's the point of trying too hard? So, here it is.I hope you enjoyed it._  
 _\- I've been thinking about how to gender the Infinity Stones since the English language doesn't really offer any insight into whether time, space, mind, time, reality and soul are conceived of as being either male or female (which are, on top of that, not the only gender identities in existence). In the end, I decided to gender them based on the German language (which has a gendered article system), meaning that time, reality, soul and power are now female, while space is male and mind, which has about a zillion translations including gender-neutral ones, is fluid. But more about that in the next chapter._  
 _\- I also feel that I might have dragged out Tony's and Thor's fight just a liiiittle too long (and I get it, hackeline83, who doesn't want to punch some sense into them all?) but, apart from the fact that I had a lot of, maybe too much, fun with this, they are in quite a similar place right now. They both faced Thanos in combat and they both failed. And they are both used to constantly fixing things, each in their own way, but now they just can't. They're helpless, they feel guilty, they're incredibly tense and Thor focuses all his energy on Loki and projects his frustration onto everyone who attacks Loki and Tony projects his frustration onto Thor after the replicated scepter turned out to be useless so far and, more importantly, the Odinson brothers admitted to everything being kinda sorta their fault. They both had a tunnel vision, which was exacerbated by the fact that they were stranded, huddled together with no escape, so that it seems natural that both of them would need a scapegoat to deal with their feelings of failure; which both of them are new to in a way._  
 _\- Not to mention Valkyrie, who only joined Thor in his quest to defeat Hela after she learned that Odin was dead and allowed herself to believe that Thor was different and would build a new Asgard and rule it completely differently; only to find him go on a Kamikaze mission to save Loki a few weeks later._  
 _\- "I could have cut Thanos' wretched head from his miserable shoulders" – In case you were wondering, yes, that is a Thranduil reference from The Desolation of Smaug :)_  
 _\- Also, while writing this scene, I had the chorus of Matt Simon's **We can do better** stuck in my ear and I think it's the perfect soundtrack for Thor, so here's the lyrics for you:  
~*~ __When all we see is bad blood and mistakes_  
 _All we hear are sad songs 'bout heartbreaks_  
 _And no matter how long it takes_  
 _We're not gonna give up  
_ _We can do better_  
 _Oh, we can do better ~*~  
_ _Before you say anything, yes, I know this is actually a love song and, no, I don't ship them, but these lines fit anyway.  
-_ _And last but not least: Thank you so much to all the new followers of this story. I hope you stay tuned, for much will be explained/revealed in the subsequent chapters._


	19. Better not left unsupervised

#19

Much to Thor's relief, Tony and Bruce had kept the Avengers informed about everything that had transpired, which meant that he did not have to explain either Loki's Jotun appearance or his brother's collapse or his own thunderous mistake. Much to his sorrow, however, the others were eyeing him with what one might graciously describe as distrustfulness when they stepped out of the vessel and greeted him with either wariness, incredulity or disappointment—or a mixture of all three. While Thor had known that Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff would not be likely to change their opinion about Loki any time soon and had suspected Steve Rogers to be still digesting what he had said about Bucky Barnes, Thor was stunned by Bruce's hesitant reaction. The scientist looked at him with the kind of disappointment that had an unmistakable trace of repulsion in it when he greeted him and Thor could not remember a time when he had felt more awful. He managed a contrite smile. "Hey, Bruce."

Bruce smiled back awkwardly and almost apologetically, as if it was somehow his fault that Thor had lost his temper. Fortunately for all of them, however, Shuri had apparently decided to fly the Avengers back to New York herself and her presence lifted Thor's spirits a little at least. From their very first encounter, he had sensed that Shuri was no ordinary mortal. She was terrifyingly intelligent, curious and wise beyond her years but, above all, she was kindhearted and compassionate. And even if she had made it quite clear that she did not want Loki in her own country, the Thundergod was sure that she would try everything in her might to help his brother with the vibranium technology at her disposal. She confirmed this assumption when she saluted him with a curt nod, asking, "How is he injured?" as she knelt down beside Loki's unconscious frame.

"He doesn't have any visible injuries," Thor answered while he watched Nebula escorting Pepper into the Wakandan aircraft from the corner of his eye. "No physical ones, at least."

"I can't say that I'm not enjoying seeing him so helpless after everything he's put us through," Clint said to Natasha in that kind of pretended whisper that was just loud enough for anyone to hear. Before Natasha or Thor himself could react to that comment, Rocket, who had apparently gained confidence as the team's mediator, intervened. "Dude, that was six years ago. Get over it."

Clint's eyes narrowed. "If he'd been inside _your_ head, you wouldn't be welcoming him with open arms either."

Rocket shook his head in disgust. "I can't believe that whatever happened in 2012 is still your biggest problem." He guffawed. Meanwhile, Shuri removed one of the pearls from her bracelet and, almost gently, placed it onto Loki's wrist, where it transformed itself into a silver wristband that snapped shut with a soft click and projected a rectangular screen into the air that showed a glimmering plethora of numbers and letters Thor could not begin to decipher.

"Loki had Thanos inside his head when he did whatever it was that he did to you and you know it," Rocket continued. "Nebula told us. _All_ of us. Why can't y'all let that fucking New-York-alien-army-mind-control-whatever-thing go? Thanos erased all our friends. He erased our _families_. He destroyed _every_ thing. He used Loki the same way he used Nebula. They aren't responsible for this. _Thanos is_. Why is it so hard for y'all to wrap your head around that?"

Clint swallowed and Thor could have sworn that tears began to pool in his eyes. Natasha's hand wandered to his shoulder and squeezed it gently.

"I know this isn't easy for you," Tony concurred. "It isn't easy for any of us but Loki knows stuff that we don't. He _talked_ to the Infinity Stones and if they're still in Thanos' possession, which is more than likely, his magical abilities are a lot more helpful than anything we managed to come up with during the past weeks." He glanced down at Loki and Shuri and blurted out a strange noise when he caught sight of the numbers on the screen the scientist's pearls had brought into existence. "This is … incredible."

"What is?" Thor asked nervously.

"By human standards, he is, well, _dead_ ," Bruce replied quietly, a look of astonishment on his face. "His body temperature is so low that—"

"He's a _Frost_ Giant," interrupted Valkyrie. "Look around you, Bruce. He can freeze water simply by touching it. Their body temperature is naturally low."

"But his heart is hardly beating," added Shuri. "Is that natural, too? His heart rate is barely even twenty beats per minute."

"What are you saying?" Thor asked anxiously, a brick of fear settling in his stomach. "That he's _dying_? Again?" Every organ in his body churned.

"Don't be stupid, Thor," said Valkyrie. "He isn't dying. He burned himself out using his powers. He spent weeks in the realm of the dead, from which not many people return unscathed. Hela's torture puts a strain on even the strongest of Gods and so does harnessing the power of the Infinity Stones. And we can't even know if he still has the resilience of an Aesir now that his body has been reversed to its Jotun form. Frost Giants too are resilient but I am not sure if they are resilient enough to withstand the power of magic as ancient as this."

"But how—"

"He is resting," Valkyrie assured him. "It's a natural reaction. It's what happens when you harness too much power. Think of it as a type of Odinsleep."

"A type of _what_?" asked Shuri.

"Odinsleep." Valkyrie smiled wanly. "It's the regenerative sleep the allfather would take once a year to replenish his own and Asgard's powers. His body would also shut down almost entirely to hasten the healing process." Thor's heart swelled with a longing so fierce it robbed him of his breath as he admired the extent of Valkyrie's knowledge and mourned the loss of his father in equal parts. "The only problem is," Valkyrie continued, "that he is extremely vulnerable right now. His mind is extremely susceptible to cosmological interference and—"

" _How_ can you know that?" Thor cut in.

"Why do you think Frigga encased Odin in a protection spell whenever he entered Odinsleep?" Valkyrie asked him pointedly and Thor was once again taken aback by how little attention he had paid to all the spellcraft and magic that had, if only peripherally, governed the daily routine in the Royal Palace of Asgard.

"So, you're thinking that harnessing the power of the Infinity Stones did that to him?" Natasha asked Valkyrie and thereby steered the conversation away from a topic that was beyond mortal comprehension towards a possible path for action. "Which means that you must think he harnessed the power of the stones recently even though you also said that _this_ "—she gestured towards the ice island around them—"is a Frost Giant thing."

"The ice is a Frost Giant thing," Valkyrie explained.

"But he willed the ocean into shape before he froze it," Thor continued. "Which he probably did using his magic, which partly comes from the Reality Stone."

"And while he did that, the Reality Stone _talked_ to him?" Steve Rogers asked, his features straining with reluctance and disbelief. "How is that even possible?"

"I don't know," Thor whispered. He inwardly cursed himself once again for his abysmal ignorance of all matters concerning Asgardian magic and felt a new wave of despair and anger surge inside of him. "I really … I have no idea."

Clint, who had apparently recovered from the reminder that Thanos had vaporized his entire family, gave a snort. "There seems to be an awful lot that you don't know," he pointed out sourly. "How can it be that, although the two of you grew up _together_ , Loki knows so much about these damn stones while you know jack shit?"

"Because," Thor spat and took a menacing step towards his former ally, "Loki spent much of his youth in solitude, devouring every book in the royal library of Asgard, while I was roaming the Nine Realms punching holes into the faces of my enemies with my hammer." The tension in the air was more than enough fuel to kindle his hereditary urge to create havoc and he could feel his fingers tightening around his axe. Clint Barton stumbled an instinctive step backwards.

"Thor, stop! We've been through this, okay?" shouted Rocket. "No more bickering, no more punching, no more thunder!"

Thor groaned unwillingly as he suppressed his rage with all the mental strength he could muster. Clint's lips twitched into a half-smile that might have been one of relief or glee. Thor willed himself to look away and focused on Shuri, whose intent gaze was fixed upon the projected monitor.

"But do you actually know for sure that it was the Infinity Stones who talked to him?" Steve asked into the ensuing silence. "If you're saying that his mind is very susceptible to interference right now, couldn't it also be—"

"Thanos?" Thor finished for him.

Steve nodded hesitantly. "How can you know that this it is not a trap?"

"I can't," answered Thor.

"What did Loki say, exactly?" Natasha asked. "About what the stones told him?"

Valkyrie shook her head. "We haven't gotten that far. The only thing he managed to say before he passed out was that they _had_ been talking to him."

"And last night, he told me that the stones were indignant and in distress because they were revolting against the iniquity they had been misused for," Thor added.

"So what you're saying is that you can't even tell if it's really the Infinity Stones who sent some kind of message into his mind or if it's Thanos messing with him again?" Clint asked.

Thor cleared his throat before he spoke. "I can't but why would Thanos—"

"Because Valkyrie just confirmed that Loki's an easy target in his current state?" Barton scoffed. "Or maybe because, brainwashed or not, Loki's been an ally of Thanos before and even you can't be sure if you can really trust your own brother because he's the fucking God of Trickery? And before you say anything," he added in a softer voice when he saw Thor's jaws work, "you admitted as much last night. You said, and I quote, 'I am not even sure if I can trust him'."

Every single one of his former companions looked contrite and Thor knew that they thought Clint Barton had a point. By Hel, Thor himself knew that he had a point.

"All we're saying is that there's probably a whole lot of stuff even you don't know about the alliance between Loki and Thanos," Steve continued.

"Thanos could be inside his head again right now," Natasha added, "planting another poisonous idea and if he wakes up—"

"You're right," Thor cut in. "This is too dangerous. Which is why," he continued on a sigh, "you should probably go ahead without us."

"That's not what we meant," Natasha said. "You can't—"

"We have done enough damage as it is," Thor interrupted her once more. "I don't want to see anyone else get hurt. We are going to stay here until he wakes up and I can be sure that he is still himself."

"Oh, Thor," Valkyrie murmured in a tone that falsely suggested they had already had this exact conversation a thousand times before. "You just admitted that you are entirely out of your depth. You have no plan. You have no idea what you are dealing with. You have no idea what state of mind he's going to be in when he wakes up."

"Which is exactly why we should not take him to New York," Thor insisted. "Or anywhere else."

"But you can't do this alone," Valkyrie insisted.

Thor glanced at his brother. "I'm not alone."

"That's not what I meant," Valkyrie mumbled grimly.

"And just how are you planning to stop Loki if Thanos is inside his head again?" Tony inquired; his face strained with what Thor knew by now was anxiety. "You don't know half as much about the Infinity Stones or Thanos as he does and it's not as if you're likely to fight him because, let's be real here, the tiny bit of reason and logic you possess go straight out of the window when it comes to Loki. So, _what_ are you gonna do?"

"I will figure something out," said Thor even though he felt with every fiber of his being the certainty that he had finally reached an impasse for the first time in his life. "No offense but I am sort of a God. I will be okay."

His companions only stared at him for a moment. Bruce was the first to speak and he did so in a broken, trembling whisper. "We know that _you_ will be okay, but what about the rest of the world? The rest of the universe? If there's any moral to your little history lesson, it's probably that Asgardians, Gods or not, are better not left unsupervised."

Thor flinched inwardly as a torrent of memories poured into his mind. Loki's attempt to destroy Jotunheim to gain Odin's favor. Loki's descent into genocidal madness that followed the destruction of the Bifrost Bridge. Thor's decision to bring Jane into Asgard, hazarding Malekith's attack and causing their mother's death. Loki's decision to take the Tesseract that resulted in his own death, which, in turn, resulted in Thor's hardly-thought-out plan to bring his brother back and agree to Hela's outrageous terms in the process. Bruce was right. Every single one of their attempts to fix things had claimed at least one life and with half of all life in the universe erased already, they could hardly afford to continue down this path.

"He's right," Tony agreed. "You're coming with us so that we can keep an eye on both of you."

 _You know what you have to do, my son_ , his father's voice suddenly reached his ears from far away. _You know that you are lost without counsel. Do not disregard the needs of the mortals you swore to protect as I once did. Do not repeat my mistakes. Be a better protector of the Realms than I was._

Thor let out a breath, glanced at Loki one more time, and nodded solemnly. "Alright," he conceded quietly and scooped up his brother.

* * *

For what felt like a long while, Loki's sleep remained blissfully dreamless, but eventually, a part of his subconscious stirred awake and inevitably became susceptible to the shadowy ephemera that chased through the hazy, shapeless world in between deep slumber and wakefulness, just waiting to latch onto the mind of a sleeper struggling against their deepest secrets. At first, there were only images scurrying by in a blur. The worry in his mother's eyes that belied the smile on her lips. The crackling fire of the Eternal Flame licking the crown of Surtur. His brother's face, half obscured by a menacing shadow, deep lines of worries etched into his features. Odin's sneer. Laufey's grimace. A glinting blade. A shimmer of purple in the dark. Hela's icy blue eyes. The Infinity Gauntlet. Asgard erupting into flames. A gloomy stone cave. Turquoise lightning, streaked with whitish blues and greens. His own face, hollow but gleaming in a dazzling sapphire blue, a trickle of indigo blood dripping from his lips. _I mean, what are you? A vampire?_ The images might have been daunting individually but they were harmless enough as they sped by. Soon, however, there was a voice, faint at first but growing louder, which lured him away from the bricolage of fuzzy images and alerted his subconscious enough to make the dreamscape seem alarmingly real, blurry at first but quickly swimming into focus.

Loki found himself standing under a blindingly blue sky on a patch of grassland surrounded by steep forested hills as far as the eye could see. The sun was glaring from its highest point in the sky and Loki was glad that he did not have to experience the power of its rays physically. The grass was swaying in a light breeze that his dream-self could not feel on his skin.

"Look over here," said a voice that Loki recognized as that of the Mind Stone and that was coming from a lonely wooden cabin that stood about thirty feet away. He crept closer and if he had been there in his corporeal form, he would have held his breath. _What if this is a trap?_ Of course, it was a trap. Anything else was unconceivable. How could _he_ have summoned the _Infinity Stones_? He was no one. He was merely a renegade of both Asgard and Jotunheim. He certainly was no hero. If anything, he was a risk; a liability; a lunatic followed by chaos and destruction wherever he went. Out of nowhere, he remembered the lines of the play that had tumbled into his mind when he had sprawled in an armchair in the Royal Chambers of Asgard with nothing but a silken bathrobe hugging his bare skin, lonely and languid, his brain stupefied with wine. _On that day, I did not yet see in you Asgard's savior. No. You were merely a little blue baby icicle that melted this old fool's heart._

Loki laughed a toneless laugh. He was not and would never be Asgard's savior, and this was not the road to redemption. This was the road to damnation and if he continued to hope even for one second that he—the God of Mischief, Lies and Trickery—might be able to save a single soul when he had not even been able to save his own, the consequences would be dire.

Still, his curiosity kept pushing him forward until he reached the cabin and caught sight of the Infinity Gauntlet, which was resting on a small table on the wooden porch; dented and blackened by smoke; rendered useless, much as he had predicted. Then he saw the titan's golden armor, mounted on a scarecrow with outstretched arms, glinting treacherously in the bright sunlight. Filled with dread, Loki stumbled backwards, trying to break free from the dream, but the Mind Stone's voice was holding him back. "No, you must stay."

"I know this is a trap," whispered Loki. "I am not a fool." His voice grew louder. "So, where are you? I know you are here. If you want me, the least you can do is show yourself, Than—"

"No!" hissed another voice that seemed to come from inside the Gauntlet. "Do not utter his name lest you alert him to your presence."

"Then why don't _you_ show yourself?" Loki commanded. "Yourselves."

The stones, still encased in the consumed Gauntlet, flickered and released six amorphous shadows that slowly metamorphosed into six translucent entities of ethereal beauty. Their appearance was reminiscent of the elegance of the Light Elves but they were fairer still, fairer in a way that defied any description. Their skin was of a pale white, looking as smooth as polished alabaster, while their gleaming, vigilant eyes, their hair and their silken robes assumed the color of the stones that hosted their souls. Time, soul, power and reality were recognizably female as they materialized in their garments of green, orange, violet and red, their waist-long curly hair flowing around them. The Space Stone's hair was a lot shorter, its length approximately that of Thor's hair at the time of his appointed but thwarted coronation, and the lack of curves under his silken robe suggested that he was male. The Mind Stone, who was the first to step forth from the circle, was neither. Their hair was long but straight and their features were androgynous. "I bid you welcome, Loki, child of Asgard."

Loki did not bother to point out that he was, in fact, no child of Asgard. "Why did you bring me here? Is that His sanctuary?" He cackled at the equivocation. "The place where He is planning to live out his life in peace?"

Mind gave a nod.

"And, by implication, you are trapped here, too?" Loki guessed. "You have been compromised and your powers are fading but as long as you are bound to the Gauntlet, you have no way to escape?"

"Wow, he's quick," observed the being clad in green.

The orange incarnation of the Soul Stone murmured her approval before she glanced at Mind, her eyes narrowing in thought. "Who is he, exactly? Why do you think it has to be him?"

"That is an excellent question," Loki sighed.

Soul took a step towards him and he instinctively stumbled backwards, cursing himself because this was only a dream, after all. The stones could not possibly harm him in a dream. _Or could they?_ The being that was the Soul Stone gazed at him with her piercing orange eyes and transfixed him in place as she reached deep into his own soul with invisible magical fingers. _Yes, they could._

* * *

 _Author's note:_  
 _Alriiiiight, this took me a while, and I'm sorry but *deep breath* I'm not exactly in good health right now. Also, I originally planned to deal with this chapter in the same way I started the second part of the previous one, namely by just describing what happened in the hours that Loki was unconscious, so that I could get to that dream sequence faster because this is gonna be the turning point of the story and I wanted to write this for so long. But then I realized that I would probably end up having to describe Thor's decision to go with them in flashbacks and in order to avoid this, I just squeezed the first part in. The bad thing is, it doesn't really feel right, even to me, and I'm not really satisfied with it; even though I had a lot of fun with Rocket and also with Valkyrie. Thanks for all your comments regarding Rocket, by the way. I totally agree that he is such an underrated character and I really like the idea that he's basically the only one keeping his cool; even though he also lost everyone. And I just like the idea of Valkyrie being so much older and stronger and wiser than Thor (and Loki, in a way, even though Loki is, of course, a lot smarter than Thor), who has been a spoiled princeling for most of his life, and is basically still a dimwit when it comes to all these things he never paid attention to. And him realizing this stirs up a lot of anger, of course._ _The good thing, however, is that most of what comes next is already written, so the next update shouldn't take me quite so long._ _Thank you so much for staying with me :)_


	20. Time to write your own destiny

#20

"I see so much darkness inside of you," the Soul Stone murmured warily. Since Loki was not physically present, her spellwork did not _hurt_ in the truest sense of the word but it still felt as much like a violation as the mental torture Hela and Thanos had inflicted upon him. "I see so much rage, so much contempt for those who loved you, so much hatred for yourself and the world you grew up in, so much disgust, despair and deceit. And among all those things, I see our signatures"—she looked first at Mind, then at Reality, Power, and Space—" _your_ signatures. He absorbed them." She glanced at Loki. "How did you manage to absorb the energy of _four_ of us into your own magic?"

"I suppose I ended up in the right place at the right time quite a few times," Loki answered in his God-of-Mischief voice while he inexplicably yearned for the dark voice's counsel. "Or maybe it was the wrong places at the wrong times, I am not quite sure yet."

Soul glared at him. "This is no laughing matter, child."

Even though he was not present in his corporeal form in this peculiar dream, Loki shuddered. "I didn't me—"

"Be silent," the Soul Stone said before she faced the other stones with a grave expression that indicated she was the one in command. The inference triggered the memory of words Loki had read in one of the ancient books in Asgard's library many, many years past. _The Soul Stone is the mightiest of all the Infinity Stones. It harbors a plane of existence within it—an idyllic but outlandish landscape called the Soul World—that is inhabited by the souls of those who died at the hands of the Infinity Stone wielders._ Loki's mouth gaped open. "Why didn't—"

"It is not your turn to ask questions just yet," interrupted the Soul Stone. "First, we have to agree that you can be trusted." She glanced at the incarnation of the Power Stone. "Tell me about him."

"He welcomed the pain that was inflicted upon him with my energy. He craved it as a means to surpass his mighty brother," Power replied. "I know that Mind's manipulations amplified the darkness in his heart but the hatred was there nonetheless."

"That was a long time ago," snarled Loki, suddenly furious that his dream-self had apparently been summoned to this accursed place to answer for crimes long past. He was furious, too, that Thor had freed him from Hela's grueling but still somehow peculiarly soothing torture and thus subjected him to the wrath and suspicions of all those he had wronged in the past. Yet most of all, he was furious with himself for being so norndamned piteous that letting go of Thor's hand had presented itself as the only opportunity for action to him in that fateful moment on the Bifrost Bridge.

"That might be true but traces of this hatred still lingered when he died," Power objected.

The Space Stone nodded in response to this and before Loki could open his mouth to dissent, he conjured up a translucent projection of the Tesseract, asking, "Are you going to deny that part of you wished your brother harm when you willingly gave your own life?"

"That is _not_ true," Loki began but the Tesseract flickered to life in bright flashes of kingfisher blue and distracted him from what he was going to say with a projection of himself, bruised and battered, standing in the debris left behind by the titan's attack, looking simultaneously terrified and determined. _What should I do_ , he heard his own voice ask and marveled for a second how such a conversion of thoughts into spoken words was possible at all. Yet before he could even try to sort out the workings behind the Infinity Stones' magic, he heard the dark voice speak in a distorted snarl that was still so recognizably his own that its words sent an inexplicable shiver down the spine of his dream-self. _Thor will survive but he will suffer. He will save Asgard's people but he will suffer. He might defeat Thanos but he will suffer. He will be safe but he will suffer._ Then he saw himself squirming in the titan's golden-gloved grasp before he spoke the words that sent Thanos over the edge. _Y-you will never be a God._

Space smiled grimly. "Are you truly going to deny that part of what motivated you to do this was the prospect of your brother's suffering?"

"Yes," Loki protested. "That wasn't me. I wanted him to survive. I wanted _our people_ to survive. I—"

"You wanted him to survive because you wanted him to suffer," the Space Stone clarified. "Stop lying to us."

Loki flinched as he realized in horror that, dream or not, those beings that now stood before him in their ethereal grace were not like Thor or anyone else, who had only ever had access to the warped linguistic manifestation of a mere fraction of his thoughts. They had seen his true colors; they had seen every sparkle of envy, rage, despair, disgust, and self-hatred; however faint it might have been. They could see right through him.

"He is not lying to _us_ ," whispered the Mind Stone. "He is lying to himself."

"So you agree that he is a hazard," the Soul Stone noted.

"Yes," Loki whispered in a trembling voice that was thick with held back tears. "Yes, I am a hazard. I tried to purge my mind of this darkness but I have no way of knowing if I will ever be free of it." He gulped in an attempt to swallow his emotions but they broke out with a woeful sob. "I have no business here. I am not the person you should be talking to because I cannot help you. I am no match for this. I am no match for myself." He sniveled. "Just let me go," he whispered. " _Please_." He closed his eyes and tried to squirm free of their hold over his thoughts. _This is just a dream._ _I just need to wake up. I just need to—_

"Not just yet," said Mind. "There is hatred and darkness in his thoughts still, yes, but there is light as well. There is light, love, guilt and regret but most of all, there is hope; hope and longing for praise and acceptance that were promised but never received."

Loki exhaled quietly. "What am I supposed to say to that," he mumbled more to himself than to the incarnate gathering of the Infinity Stones that still felt, to say the least, unreal. _Of course, they feel unreal_ , a voice from deep inside his mind snarled. Was that really … could it be that … _This is a dream, dullard. It does not matter. Just focus._

"There is love, yes," Reality said, facing the Soul Stone. "He was created with love and it makes him strong in a way. He should—"

"Created with _love_?" Loki chuckled. "I am sure you have confused—"

"He should never have lived," Reality spoke over him as if his interjection was not worthy of being heard, "but he has proven himself to be quite resilient."

Loki gulped. "What do you mean by that?"

Reality reached for the projected Tesseract, changing its colors from blue to crimson. "Let me tell you a story."

"We don't have time for stories," the Time Stone pointed out.

"There must be time for this one," Reality objected and the Tesseract glimmered to life once more, showing a much younger version of Odin, his hair still mostly brown, who was purposefully striding through the weapon's vault of Asgard with the Casket of Ancient Winters in his possession. Frigga was following him, cradling a tiny blue-skinned baby in her arms. Loki's heart plummeted into his stomach. "The man you grew up calling father used my powers to make you a God," said Reality.

"I guessed as much," Loki said in a toneless whisper as he watched with a lump in his throat how the projection of Odin gently placed his war trophy on a stone pillar to retrieve a golden scepter with a redly glowing tip from the gilded weapon cabinet by the end of the wall. Wasting away in the dungeons with nothing but books to keep him company after his fall from grace, Loki had often wondered, unwillingly, how his metamorphosis from Jotun to Aesir had transpired. His mind had often begun to wander, conjuring up different scenarios, but he had never expected the scene of his transformation to have been the cold, stonewalled weapon's vault. No more than another stolen relic indeed. A blue-skinned living breathing war souvenir that was not supposed to see the light of day until his monstrous origin was safely concealed. Loki averted his gaze.

"Harnessing our power requires purity of intent," Reality continued. "Not in the sense that the stone wielders' intentions have to be pure as in virtuous," she elaborated when she saw Loki's confusion, "but in the sense that it weakens our powers if a stone wielder tries to keep his true intent from us."

"I'm not sure I understand," Loki whispered, his attention drawn to the projection once again.

"You cannot lie to us," Time clarified. "If your true intent is to use us to do harm but you try to disguise that intent by pretending your motives are altruistic, you betray us and our magic; and we pay the price."

"There was a shadow of darkness in Odin's heart when he made you," said Reality as she gestured towards the projection where the allfather was bringing the tip of the scepter to Loki's blue face, gently tapping his forehead. "It was a mere shadow—obscure, yes, but there nonetheless—and I sensed that he and you were going to inflict pain and destruction upon a great many of your people." Loki stood transfixed as he watched ruby red sparkles sizzle into life around the scepter's tip.

"Which is why I tried to intercept and ensure that whatever he was trying to achieve with making you a God would be nullified by you not surviving your transformation," Reality went on as the blue color on the projection of Loki's face began to fade into a pale white. As soon as the transition appeared to be complete, the baby began to cry heart-splittingly.

"You attempted to kill me?" Loki asked softly as he recalled what the man he had grown up calling father had said to him after he had tried to subjugate their precious Midgard. _Your birthright was to die, as a child, cast out onto a frozen rock._ Apparently, Odin was not the only one who thought so. Loki watched Frigga cradle the crying baby against her chest. "Tell me," he whispered, "what has _this_ baby ever done to anyone to deserve such treatment?"

"Do not impeach me, child!" Reality told him with fiercely glowing eyes. "This baby had done no harm yet, of course, but now, a few hundred years later, that looks quite different, doesn't it? I tried to protect Asgard from great plight."

"You knew this was going to happen?" Loki asked petulantly, gesturing vaguely towards the cabin. " _All_ of this? You knew I was going to fall from grace, attack Midgard, bring my parents great sorrow, disappoint my brother and eventually destroy Asgard?"

"As I said, it was a mere shadow," Reality replied curtly. "I put the allfather on trial. I ensured that only true love, which I suspected was lost among the Asgardians, would complete the transformation. You were caught between your Jotun and your Aesir form for days. You did not eat. You did not sleep." The Tesseract showed an image of Frigga picking up a wailing baby from its crib and cradling it to her chest to no avail. "You were on the brink of death, my child, but the woman you called mother would not give up and after a few weeks of suffering, you were free. Her love broke the spell and thus you were born as an Aesir. Her love saved you, Loki, and we have to have faith that some of that love survived within you."

Loki did not even try to hold his tears back this time. Reality turned towards the Soul Stone with a sad smile. "Can you see it in his colors?"

"I see it," Soul confirmed. "Love, sadness, guilt, longing. There is hatred still, but mostly, I see love."

"What was that shadow?" Loki whispered. "What did Odin want with me?"

"It was obscure," Reality repeated. "I am not entirely sure. It involved a prophecy and something he was thinking of in terms of a tangler."

"Ragnarok," said the Soul Stone with a wan smile upon her lips. "The lie that bent the entirety of the Nine Worlds to Odin's will."

Loki felt a nagging suspicion that quickly evolved into alert. "But Asgard _was_ destroyed." He once more thought of his home, however much of a prison it might have felt at times, erupting into the flames unleashed by the wrath of Surtur. He once more felt the pain of loss as he reminisced about the golden pillars, the flourishing gardens, the soothing warmth of the royal library; everything now reduced to ashes floating through space. "That is not a lie. The Realm Eternal is gone."

"Yes, but it was not destroyed because of some mythical twilight that descended upon it," Soul said softly. "It was not destroyed because the wolves stole sun and moon from the sky and plunged the Nine Worlds into darkness. It was not destroyed during the war of winter that came to pass after sun and moon were gone. Think about the prophecy again and then think about what actually transpired. Asgard was destroyed because of your actions and your decisions. Yours and your brother's. Prophecies are just words, child. They only obtain power if you act upon them."

Loki narrowed his eyes. "How come you know _so much_ about Asgard?" He took a step towards the ethereal being. "Why did you keep your eyes on us?"

"I kept part of my eyes on Asgard," answered Soul, her eyes a gleaming orange, "and on ten trillion souls in the Nine Realms because—"

"Heimdall," Loki blurted out as he suddenly remembered the orange glint in the guardian's eyes that was eerily similar to the glint in the Soul Stone's eyes he could see before him at this very moment. And suddenly, the voice spoke again. _He could see souls, you imbecile. What did you think that means?_ "He owed his foresight to your powers?"

"The Odinforce? Gungnir? The Bifrost? Norn magic?" Soul gave a silvery laugh. "You owe everything that made Asgard so mighty to our powers. I have been in Odin's possession for an unthinkably long time when the universe was still young."

"We all have," added the Power Stone.

Loki remembered another line from the ancient book he had read as a young prince. _To ensure that whoever wants to possess the Soul Stone understands its true power, it will demand a sacrifice. In order to take the mightiest of stones, you must lose that which you love. You must sacrifice a soul for a Soul._ "Who did he sacrifice?"

"His brother," said the Soul Stone almost nonchalantly.

Before Loki could process the meaning behind those words, the dreamscape tremored slightly before his very eyes.

"I told you there was no _time_ for stories," admonished the Time Stone. "Be quick now. _He_ will be here in a few minutes."

Loki felt a jolt of fear but he forced himself to focus. _It is just a dream. You will wake up before He ever reaches you._ "What about the seventh stone? Your creator? How—"

"Child, we have no creator," interrupted the Reality Stone. "We _are_ the origin of creation."

 _Before creation itself, there were six singularities,_ Loki recited the lines of the ancient book in his head. _Then the universe exploded into existence, and the remnants of these systems were forged into the Infinity Stones. Each stone represents a different aspect of our universe._ Loki frowned as he rapidly sifted through what he knew for certain. He only had Thor's word that there was a seventh stone at all and the Norns knew Thor could be wrong. His brother had lived for one and a half millennia and still seemed to have the intellectual capacity of a mealworm where certain matters where concerned. But come to think of it— _There is no_ _ **time**_ _!_ —how could there _not_ be a Death Stone? Wasn't it ridiculous that nobody should have wondered—

 _Stop thinking, you uru-brained nitwit!_ That voice again. That familiar … _Of course!_ Loki glanced at the scarecrow wearing the titan's armor and, suddenly, he understood. They did not want Him to know. With them still being bound to the Gauntlet, Thanos would still have control over them and although Loki could not be sure, he still suspected that control over them meant that Thanos might have access to their thoughts. Access to this conversation. There was no time to lose.

 _Time_.

Loki remembered what the Time Stone had said earlier. _You cannot lie to us. If your true intent is to use us to do harm but you try to disguise that intent by pretending your motives are altruistic, you betray us; and we pay the price._ He glanced at the scarecrow again and took a deep breath. "You said that everything was going to come apart and the universe was going to unravel," Loki began quietly. "That you were going to destroy yourselves. Is that why? Because He misused you by trying to conceal that his real objective was to inflict pain while he tried to convince you it was, well, something else?"

"You really are quick," the Space Stone said by way of an answer. "How did you figure it out?"

Loki sighed. "He made it quite clear to me that he thought pain to be the very fabric of the universe, which is, I suppose, why he wiped out half of it but from what I have seen, he also believed himself to be some sort of deliverer, so he might have been delusional when he snapped his fingers."

"Then you know what you are up against?" Soul asked Loki, her eyes afire with determination. "Are you ready to fight him? Ready to fight yourself?"

Loki exhaled a heavy sigh. _Prophecies are just words, child. They only obtain power if you act upon them._ It was time to write his _own_ destiny."I am," he said. Well, not entirely, but who was ever entirely ready for such a monumental task? "So, where are we?"

"We don't know," said the Power Stone.

Loki pulled a grimace in the face of the seeming intractability of the Infinity Stones' predicament. "How do you plan to overpower him if he still has you bound to the Gauntlet?"

"That is, ultimately, why you are here," said the Mind Stone, finally revealing the reason for this peculiar encounter. "You have absorbed our signatures into your own magic in a way not even the mightiest of stone wielders has accomplished. You a—"

"Just to be sure," Loki interjected, "you are you talking about Odin, aren't you?"

Mind blew out an annoyed breath that commanded him to focus. "Yes."

The affirmation sent a gleeful smile flitting across Loki's face and made him feel genuinely powerful and in control for the first time since he had learned that was not of Asgardian blood.

"Millions of beings carry traces of Infinity Stone magic inside them and yet you are the only one whose mind has been susceptible enough to hear our cries," continued Mind. "Which is why it is _you_ who has to release us."

" _Me_?" Loki felt his features slip. "How?"

"You need to take us with you. You need to take us out of this dream," Mind explained. "You need to absorb our energy and restore it in the waking world, one stone at a time."

Loki huffed a desperate laugh as he silently cursed the susceptibility of his own mind. "That is im _poss_ ible. How could my mind possibly contain the full power of an Infinity Stone? How could I possibly survive that much power surging through me?"

"Your companions have created a vessel for me," said Mind softly and was suddenly recognizably female. "I saw it in the Iron Man's eyes."

"They aren't _my_ companions," Loki snapped, almost reflexively.

"Oh, Loki," Mind sighed. "Do you still not understand? I have traveled to the core of your mind. I know of your deepest desires, your deepest fears. You cannot possibly hide anything from me." She placed a translucent hand on his cheek and a warmth spread through his body. "I know that, more than anything else, you want to belong. You fear to be alone and rejected, and yet you continue to do your best that this is exactly what happens. Stop being your own worst enemy. Embrace this chance."

"Embrace this chance to … die?" Loki giggled. " _Again_?"

The incarnation of the Mind Stone smiled. "The mortals have created a vessel for us, which they could not use," she repeated, "but they cherish a small hope that you might. Search for it and then call for me."

The dreamscape shook once more, violently this time, and the illusion of the forested mountains surrounding the cabin began to crumble away, revealing nothing but the hollow blackness of a dreamless sleep behind them. Loki could feel rather than hear what the Reality Stone was saying. _He picked up the Gauntlet_. "Just one last question," he shouted over the noise of the imploding dream. "Where did the souls go?"

"To me, of course," said the Soul with a smile.

"Are they lost?" asked Loki but before any of them could answer, the titan's voice—raw and deep and terrifyingly familiar—thundered through his head. " _Why_ are you glowing?"

"You _must_ go now," ordered the Mind Stone. "But hold yourself ready and make haste!"

The urgency in her voice catapulted Loki out of the dream and his eyes snapped open.

* * *

 _Author's Note :_

 _~ Hi, folks! I can't believe it again took me this long to edit this chapter because, as I said, much of it had already been written at the time I published the last chapter. But I went on a weekend trip from the 21st to the 24th and also published another story, so yeah, time is the enemy of all of us, I guess._  
 _~ If you're interested in some sort of background story to this chapter, you can read my one-shot 'No harm shall home to you' which tells the story of Loki's transformation from Frigga's perspective. If you already read it, you now know why the transformation didn't work at first and why baby Loki had to suffer for so long. The poor creature._  
 _~ I'm not sure what else to say because any questions that you may have will probably be dealt with in the subsequent chapters. Loki too will have a few questions of his own when he awakes._  
 _~ Ah, yes. Uru-brained nitwit. Loki said that to Thor in one of the first issues of the Thor 2018 run by Jason Aaron and the insult just got stuck in my brain, so I had to use it at some point._  
 _~ Stay tuned!_


	21. A comfort I can no longer afford

#21

Loki blinked and found himself lying in a dark room with floor-to-ceiling-windows that revealed nothing but the smudgy gray of a gloomy night outside. For a moment, he was disoriented, as the voices of the Infinity Stones he had encountered in this outlandish dream conversation were still echoing through his sleep-drugged head, whispering of Frigga's love, Odin's deceptions and Asgard's creation and stirring up the single memory of Yggdrasil standing tall in the Great Hall, its branches sparkling with the Odinforce. Ultimate power and, along with it, mastery of time, reality, space, mind, and soul—mastery of all six Infinity Stones. _The allfather built the Realm Eternal with all its technological marvels on their magic, creating a beacon of hope that perched atop the universe for an inconceivably long time_ , he thought, a little disheartened by the revelation. _And what did we do? We annihilated it and let all of the Stones fall into the hands of Thanos._

 _ **Why**_ _are you glowing?_

Loki sat up quickly and the motion sent a sharp pain shooting into his neck. His eyes swept the room and when they had finally adjusted to the darkness, he spotted Thor, who was slumping in a chair by the wall across from his bed, his chin resting on his chest, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. "Brother?" Loki asked but there was no response except for a soft snoring noise. Then, he remembered that it had been around midday when his conscious mind had passed into dream. He moaned softly and whispered to himself, "Gods, for how long have I been—"

"Almost fourteen hours," interrupted a mechanical voice from somewhere inside the poorly illuminated room. "It is now nine o' clock in the evening, Eastern Standard Time."

 _Eastern St—what_? Loki craned his neck until his vertebrae creaked and felt for the mattress beneath him in the dark until his fingers identified a chunk of ice where a pillow should have been. For a moment, he was stunned, unable to decide whether he should feel grateful or offended. _They brought you back to Headquarters and put you on ice like a norndammed specimen._ "Stark?" Loki growled quietly. He realized that the room temperature too was pleasantly chilly and moved towards grateful. _You are Jotun. They are doing you a favor._

"I am not Mr. Stark," the disembodied voice replied. "My name is Friday but I will immediately notify Mr. Stark that you are awake."

 _Great_ , Loki thought. He swung himself out of bed and inspected the room, which was empty except for the bed, the chair and a few cabinets. When the stupor of sleep began to wear off, the more significant revelations of the dream wobbled back into his mind. The Infinity Stones were going to destroy themselves because Thanos had betrayed their magic by lying about what it was that he had most desired when he had snapped his fingers to decimate half of all life in the universe. They needed help. The universe—and all life still left within it—needed help. The help of a fallen god who did not have the mental resilience to keep his own demons at bay. _You need to absorb our energy and restore it in the waking world._ Ha, what a monumental joke. This must have been just a dream after all. The Infinity Stones could not have really said those things to him, could they? Or maybe it was all true and Loki was just afraid that it was because of how much effort he would have to put into redeeming himself while he had absolutely no certainty that Midgard and the Avengers would ever forgive him.

 _Always so perceptive_ , Frigga had told him shortly before her death. _About everyone but yourself_.

 _No more of that,_ Loki declared in a moment of sudden, inexplicable clarity. _This time, I am going to make you proud, Mother._ He walked over to the chair and jiggled Thor's shoulders. "Wake up, brother!"

Tony Stark's voice reached his ears through some invisible transmission system. "Loki? Thor? Are you okay up there?"

"Yes," Loki replied, marveling for a second how that could actually be the truth. The presence of all six Infinity Stones inside his mind should have depleted him and yet here he was, feeling more energized that he had when he had lost consciousness on the ice floe.

"Is he sleeping?" asked Stark. " _Really_?"

Loki glanced upwards. "Wait, are you watching us?"

"Of course we are," Stark replied casually. "You are kind of a safety hazard."

 _So, you agree that he is a hazard,_ the mercilessly unsympathetic voice of the Soul Stone clattered through his head. "Listen to me, Stark," Loki snarled as he reflexively flexed his hand muscles, bracing himself for casting a mind bolt. "If you think that I am in the mood—"

"Brother," Thor mumbled drowsily. "Don't. It's alright."

"Is that a Gods thing?" Stark asked grimly. "Keeping your eyes on people while they're closed?"

Thor yawned as grandly as a lion. "It's alright. Nothing happened." He turned to Loki. "You're okay, right?"

"Yes," Loki growled, enraged by their distrust. He knew it was a mere safety measure—and by the fallen Real Eternal, they had every right to be suspicious of his allegiance—but it enraged him nonetheless. He raised his clenched fist and felt the sparks of his magic crackle against his skin.

"Loki, put your hand down," ordered Thor. "We were just worried that Thanos might be inside your head again when you wake up; that it might have been him wielding the Infinity Stones when they sent some kind of message into your mind."

Loki breathed out impatiently when he realized that he could not blame them for this line of thought when it had been his first conclusion as well.

"Might have?" Stark repeated. "That sounds as if you're quite sure grape-face isn't in his head."

 _Grape-face?_ Loki repeated silently before he said, "He is not."

"Prove it," said another voice that Loki could not identify before it broke off again.

Loki tried to ignore the fact that the Avengers probably sat assembled somewhere inside this building, watching him on some kind of screen the same way he had watched them toy with the Mind Stone through astral projection, completely reversing their positions of power. The dark voice stirred ever so slightly but Loki fought it back with the words of the Mind Stone. _More than anything, you want to belong. Stop being your own worst enemy. Embrace this chance._

"I suppose you will find it difficult to imagine this," he began softly, "but the Mind Stone told me that you created some sort of vessel that you reckoned might be able to harness its power." He tried to suppress a smile when he heard them gasp.

"But … how does," began a female voice.

"How does the Mind Stone know this?" Loki finished for his disembodied interlocutor. "Well, she said she saw it in the Iron Man's eyes. I suppose this must have been on the ice after I first felt their presence in my head."

This explanation stirred up a murmur of voices talking across each other. "I did think that, yeah," Stark said eventually. "When I saw the Power Stone wounds, I thought 'What if _he_ can kick-start our Mind Stone?'"

"What do you mean _your_ Mind Stone?" Loki asked incredulously but Stark paid him no attention. "That's actually kinda creepy."

" _Isn't_ it?" mocked Clint Barton and Loki's heart sank when he heard the archer's voice.

 _They built a vessel for me_. Apparently, they did more than that, Loki thought. "Is that proof enough?"

"No," replied the female voice he identified as that of the Black Widow. "If Thanos was the one wielding the stones and used them to deceive you, he would know that."

"Listen to me," Loki interrupted her and glanced at Thor, who was biting his lip in uneasy anticipation. "I know you do not trust me, and that you have absolutely no reason to, but the Stones showed me things, told me things, that Thanos would never want me to know." _Hold yourself ready and make haste, Loki!_ "And I swear I will tell you everything that you want to know about how we can put that vessel for the Mind Stone you built to use if you let me talk to you in a constellation in which the distribution of power is less obviously to my disadvantage."

Thor gave a confirming nod. "This is my brother talking."

The voice who had spoken first asked "Everything?" and Loki figured it might belong to Steve Rogers.

"Everything," Loki promised. _Well, obviously not everything you_ _ **want**_ _to know. Only what you need to know._ There was a moment of silence as the Avengers probably communicated with each other nonverbally.

"Alright," Tony Stark said eventually. "By the way, there's a bathroom next door, in case you want to freshen up first."

Loki could almost hear the engineer's smirk. "Excuse me?"

"I'm just saying because you look, you know, rather terrible," Stark explained. "And I'm not referring to the fact that you're blue."

He glanced at Thor, who shrugged and mumbled, "You look kind of worn out, yeah. A quick shower wouldn't hurt, I suppose."

Loki looked down at himself and found that he was still topless, with a mane of filthy-looking, knotted curls that almost reached down to the bottom of his ribcage. The sight made Loki recall the raccoon's words— _Did you practice that in front of a mirror?_ —and he realized with a sudden dismaying clarity that he had not looked in a mirror once since Thor had freed him from weeks of Hela's excruciating torture, which had been, what, two whole _days_ ago? Not to mention that he had spent the first night since his return to Midgard struggling through a feverish torture dream and the second enslaved to a dreamscape conjured up by the same powerful magic that had brought the entire _uni_ verse into being. At least, the power stone wounds had dissipated. "Do you have some sort of surveillance in there as well?" Loki asked grimly.

"We'll trust you this far," Stark conceded. "Plus, I don't think anyone wants to see you naked."

Loki ignored the jibe and walked over to the bathroom. The Mind Stone had urged him to make haste but, surely, a quick shower would not result in the immediate extinction of what was left of the universe. He hesitantly grabbed the door handle and pushed down softly, feeling his brother's gaze on his back. The bathroom was small and as sparsely furnished as the room he had slept in. There was a white toilet bowl, a glass-walled shower stall, and a white lavatory cabinet with a mirror above it and a set of toiletries spread out across its surface. A set of towels was dangling from a rack mounted to the granite tiles. He wondered briefly if Tony Stark had arranged this for _him_ but realized immediately that it hardly mattered. _You are stalling_ , Loki admonished himself and shut the door behind him.

He took a deep breath before he faced the mirror; and shrank back in horror. Even though he should not have been surprised—he'd had enough time to grow accustomed to the sapphire blue of his skin on his hands and torso after all—his reflection still repulsed him to the core. On top of being Jotun blue with unruly black hair, he was grotesquely gaunt— _you are completely starved out; your jawline looks like blades under your skin_ —his eyes were pale red where they should have been white and his irises glinted in a demonic red the color of freshly drawn blood. Loki tumbled backwards, instinctively shapeshifting into his Asgardian form and finally succeeding. Gone were the blue skin, the unruly hair and the red, monstrous eyes. He was looking into his own face again at last— _his_ smooth, pale-skinned face with _his_ sparkling green eyes framed by _his_ shiny, slicked-back black hair—and breathed out in relief.

 _It is too late_ , sneered the dark voice in a singsong. _They all saw you for the monster you truly are._

"Stop this nonsense," Loki hissed quietly as he thought of his baby-self that he had seen in the Reality Stone's projection and tried to make himself remember how Frigga had cradled him to her chest with that soft appreciative glow in her eyes, determined to love him despite his dark origin. "I am through with you. I am _not_ a monster."

 _No? Then why are you quivering? Why are you afraid of your own reflection?_ The dark voice laughed hysterically. _Why did you long for me when you were faced with the Infinity Stones' judgment? Why am I back here if you don't_ _ **need**_ _me anymore?_

Loki studied his delicate Asgardian features in the mirror—the texture of the skin, the thin lips, the high cheekbones—and suddenly sensed in the core of his existence that no matter how desirable his Aesir appearance might be, it was naught but a lie devised by Odin himself to accomplish a purpose that was still obscure. And worse than that, it was the leverage the dark voice had over him. If he truly wanted to be rid of it, he could no longer cling to lies. Well, not to this particular lie, anyway.

"Oh, I do need you," Loki conceded softly, "but you are a comfort I can no longer afford."

Finally, after all those years, the dark voice appeared to be agitated; maybe even threatened. _What is that supposed to mean?_

Loki drew a sharp breath and lifted the shapeshifting spell. "It means that I need to stop lying to myself," he whispered as he forced himself to look deeply into his own fiercely gleaming Frost Giant eyes. "You tried to make me hate Thor because you knew hatred would be easier for me to bear than having to live with the fear that he might reject me for who I am. You convinced me to lash out and hurt them all before they would get the chance of hurting me first. You tried to make me feel powerful whenever I felt helpless, powerless." Loki smiled at his disheveled reflection. "It is so blatantly obvious that I find it difficult to believe it took me so long to figure it out," he said in astonishment. "But I cannot hide from that fear, that pain any longer. Don't you understand? There really is nowhere _left_ to hide."

The dark voice growled like a beaten dog and then lapsed into silence.

Loki smiled a smile of victory as he struggled out of his pants before he stepped into the shower, turned on the cold water and tested if it was going to freeze upon his touch. When it did not, he let it beat onto his skin. He would have loved to stay under the soothing cold water forever, washing away the grime of death, dreams and ruin in its chilling fingers, but there was a war to be fought and this time, he was quite determined to try out the other side. The side that was bound to be showered with praise and recognition once the war was won. And be it only to spite the dark voice and prove it wrong; to make it realize that he could earn their forgiveness if he played by their rules.

Loki stepped out of the shower, wrapped his body up in the towel and set to the task of forcing the hairbrush through the entangled mess on his head. Since he found no clothes except for a charcoal bathrobe when he was done with his hair, he slid back into the pants he had dropped on the floor and conjured up an illusion of a black shirt before he opened the door and braced himself to face the assembled Avengers.

"Who were you talking to in there?" asked Thor as he pushed himself off the chair and eyed him suspiciously.

"Myself," Loki murmured.

Thor frowned. "You sure? It sounded—"

"Yes, I am sure," Loki cut him off. "Surer than ever. Let us just go and get this over with. We don't have much time."

Thor seemed to reconsider but eventually, he nodded and led him out of the room.

* * *

Knowing that none of the Avengers was going to be anything but loath to align themselves with him, Loki felt his entire body tense with reluctance as he willed his feet to follow Thor down the stairs and tried to brace himself for the imminent rejection. The room Thor led him to was much larger than Loki had expected. It hosted a kitchenette with marble countertops and a seating area that opened into some kind of open space laboratory, in which people he did not recognize were working on the machines the mortals called computers.

"We're here," announced Thor, unnecessarily. Loki drew in a sharp breath and greeted them in a voice that did not carry the way he would have wanted it to. _Now, now_ , said his God of Mischief voice. _This is about the worst time to lose your nerves. Let me handle this._

The Avengers were scattered on lounge chairs and regular chairs around a large table that was cluttered with bottles, glasses, books, papers, technological gadgets and horridly smelling boxes made of cardboard and plastic. Loki's chest tightened when he spotted Captain America, Black Widow and Hawkeye, who had last seen him when he had just been vanquished and subdued, more for emphasis than out of necessity, with a muzzle by his mighty golden brother. They were sitting on chairs with their legs spread apart, elbows resting on their knees, emitting a reluctance that was almost palpable. Bruce's posture was a little more relaxed but Loki still saw caution in his gaze and remembered that the scientist had witnessed the mayhem that his taking of the Tesseract had unleashed upon the Asgardians first hand.

 _The Asgardians_. He had thought of his home numerous times in the past few days but never of its people and it wasn't until now when he recalled the attack on the ship that Loki's brain finally grasped the gravity of his actions. He gulped. " _Where_ are our people, Thor? Are they all … How many have survived?"

His brother's features darkened with guilt and pain. "Too few. But those who have are out doing …" He glanced at the others for help. "What's it called, again?"

"Humanitarian Aid," said Tony Stark, who was the only member of the original team that did not look overly tense as he was sprawling unarmored on a lounge chair with a glass of whiskey in his hand. "You will see by daylight tomorrow how devastating the Snap hit here. It's nothing compared to what you saw in Norway. There are billions of people out there who lost their families, their houses, their everything. So much was destroyed when planes fell from the sky and trains derailed," Stark mumbled, his face a grimace of pain; ineffable pain. His eyes were the eyes of a man who had suffered unspeakable loss and spent every waking minute in its crippling shadow. The circles under his eyes were of a dark blue and his cheeks seemed almost hollow. "My friend Rhodey is coordinating one of the emergency aid programs."

"Our people wanted to help. They are out there with the rest of the healing stones," Thor added. _The rest of Asgard's magic._ "Korg and Miek, too, in case you were wondering."

Loki gave a slow nod—no he hadn't, really—and quickly studied the rest of the group. Valkyrie was sitting next to Pepper and Rocket, who was shoveling food from one of the boxes into his snout with his paws. Nebula was pacing the room impatiently. Behind her, Loki spotted a dark-skinned, young female with braided hair rolled into two buns on the top of her head and a fiercely intelligent glow in her eyes, who was studying a chunk of ice on a glass table that seemed to be connected to the screen above it. Even though they did not look poised to attack per se, Loki found to his dismay that their superior number and their overall rather unwelcoming expressions were disconcerting him a little after all.

"Anyways, where did you get this shirt?" Stark continued.

The question took Loki by complete surprise. "It's not a real shirt," he replied as he silently dwelled on the engineer's reasoning. "It's a glamour."

"A _glamour_?"

"An illusion," Loki explained as he lifted the spell around the cuffs in a shimmering emerald glow and realized too late that bluntly admitting to the fact that his appearance was a deception would probably not help him gain their trust.

The Black Widow wasted no time to call attention to this. "So, you're saying we don't even know if you actually look like this right now. That's reassuring, really."

Loki smirked apologetically and restored the glamour. "The alternative would have been a bathrobe and I would really like to maintain a certain image. In my defense, though, the pants are real fabric at least."

"Seriously, _why_ are we talking about this?" asked Thor. "I thought you said we didn't have much time."

Loki glanced at the clock. It was now twenty minutes to ten in the evening. Thanos had picked up the Infinity Gauntlet and noticed the stones' sparkle about forty minutes ago and only the gods knew what he had done during that time, which Loki himself had wasted on body hygiene and meaningless banter. "Right. Sorry."

Stark defensively held up his hands. "Okay. Loki? This is Shuri." He jerked his head in the direction of the dark-skinned mortal girl. "She is the smartest person on this planet."

There was a flicker of fear in the girl's eyes when she turned around and looked into Loki's but she stood firm and said "Hello" with a hardly noticeable bow of her head.

"She's studying the molecular structure of your ice right now," Stark went on, "and at the rate she's going, she might have figured out a plan to stop the poles from melting by tomorrow. Which is also not important right now because there might not be any poles left to melt if we don't act," the engineer added when he saw Loki's puzzled expression.

"Never mind. Her far greater achievement," Tony Stark went on as Shuri handed him a weapon that Loki instantly recognized, "is _this_."

Loki's lips parted in surprise as he turned to his brother. "You were referring to that scepter on the plane? How is that possible?"

"It is not the original," Shuri explained. "Shortly before Thanos' attack, I managed to copy the molecular structure of the Mind Stone into my computer, which allowed me to recreate it with vibranium."

"Because vibranium can withstand the power of the stones," Loki mumbled. "That's smart. And the scepter?"

"That's just for show," Stark replied on a shrug. "We could have used anything for the protective casing, really, but we thought—well, _I_ thought—it would be a tad more dramatic this way."

Loki extended his hand towards the scepter. "I can assure you, it is about to get a lot more than a tad dramatic."

"Hold on," interrupted Steve Rogers. "Not so fast. I want to know exactly what we are dealing with before you touch that thing."


	22. That is his legacy

#22

"You are dealing with magic, Captain," said Loki. "To cut the matter short, Odin used the power of the Reality Stone to turn me into an Aesir and I assimilated its signature. This, I suppose, helped me absorb the signature of the Mind, the Space and the Power Stone into my own magic when I came into contact with them; even though I have to admit I wasn't fully aware of it until now."

"What do you mean you weren't _fully_ aware of it?" asked Valkyrie. "How can you be only half aware of such powerful magic streaming through your veins?"

"I was aware that my powers had evolved after New York," Loki explained. "Telekinesis used to put a strain on me but, suddenly, I found myself able to effortlessly destroy my entire cell with only one thought. And even though it is absolutely obvious to me now, I never consciously considered that I might have absorbed the Mind Stone's energy until I used its powers on the ice and heard it speak." He laughed tonelessly. _No, I did not even consider it at all. I fell for Thanos' speech and believed that the pain he had inflicted upon me had made me stronger and amplified my magic._ Loki shuddered. _Almost as though he never let go of his hold over my thoughts entirely._

"The Mind Stone?" Rogers repeated with a side-glance at Thor. "I thought you were using the Reality Stone."

Loki smiled at him. "This is not like deciding on a sword or a dagger to fight with. I have practiced magic for more than a thousand years, Captain. My signature is comprised of just as many colors that bleed into each other whenever I use a spell. You can hardly—" He stopped when he noticed their baffled expressions.

"What is important here," Loki continued, "is that the Mind Stone called out to me when I used its powers and then summoned me into a dream to show me where Thanos is hiding. I saw where he resides and the climate and vegetation of that planet seemed not very different from yours although I noticed there were two moons in the sky. I also saw the demolished Gauntlet, still unusable because of the Snap and the titan's deception, which is both your greatest advantage and the reason you are running out of time."

And then, Loki told them everything that the Stones had revealed to him through dream. Well, not everything, obviously. He left out the stones' accusations and their revelations about Asgard, the Bifrost and his parents. The Avengers remained silent for almost two full minutes after he had finished his tale and merely gaped at him, gasping and murmuring in agitation as their tiny mortal brains tried to process the quintessence that the entire universe might collapse in upon itself if they did not free the stones soon. Even Thor, Valkyrie and Nebula, who had a certain knowledge of either Asgardian or Infinity Stone magic, seemed flabbergasted for a moment.

Eventually, Pepper spoke, asking the only question that truly mattered to them. "Can the Snap be undone?"

"I'm afraid I have no answer to that yet," Loki admitted. "The people who lost their lives reside in the Soul World now. The only thing I know for sure is that their spirits are not entirely lost to us; like they were if they had died regular deaths." Well, he wasn't as sure about that as he wanted to be but he recognized that hope was too scarce a commodity among them to destroy the tiny little spark of it that he had glimpsed in Pepper's eyes.

The next question came from Valkyrie. "How does the seventh stone fit into this?"

"If it exists at all," Rogers added with a wary glance at Thor and Loki. "We just spoke to Wong before you came down. He spent the last twenty-four hours doing research and, so far, he hasn't found a single note of either Nemesis or that stone in any of their ancient books."

"Who is Wong?" Loki asked but he guessed the answer before it came.

"A Master of the Mystic Arts."

"It _does_ exist," Thor insisted. "I saw it with my own eyes. It looked just like the others." His companions were reasonably unconvinced of this explanation. "Maybe the wizards' records are incomplete," Thor went on, his eyes searching for Loki's. "There was mention of it in the library of Asgard, right?"

"No, not exactly," Loki admitted as he took a quick inventory of what he did and did not know. The other six had told him that they had no creator and, as every other trustworthy source on ancient magic, the Asgardians books too had made mention of only six Infinity Stones. Whispers of Nemesis had only ever reached his ear through folk tales and hearsay and everyone knew how unreliable those could be. If the seventh stone was real, its existence was the best-kept secret in the entire universe. And if it did exist, where had it been all this time, anyway? If it was in Hela's possession now, it must have been within Asgard's grasp since Hela had been _on_ Asgard when she had met her doom, meaning that she had either been in its possession all along—which was unlikely considering her banishment—or that she had somehow vanquished Surtur and _then_ got her hands on it. Which too seemed unlikely. On the other hand, the seventh stone's existence was the only reasonable explanation for why he had not traveled to the Soul World like all other beings that had died at the hands of an Infinity Stone. If the seventh stone had intercepted his attempt to link his spirit to the Space Stone and had sucked him in because it too had felt that he had a role to play in this play, it stood to reason that—

"Hey, Frozone!" Stark snapped his fingers in front of Loki's face. "Did your divine books mention the seventh stone or not? Did the other stones?"

"They didn't," Loki replied and glanced at Thor. "Neither of them did. Are you really sure, brother? I mean, Hela never confirmed it was indeed an Infinity Stone, did she?"

Thor glowered at him. "Do you doubt my judgment?"

"Well, yes," Loki admitted and flashed his brother an apologetic grin. "No offense but you are not exactly an expert on magical artifacts."

"Or anything magic, if it comes to that," Valkyrie added.

Thor's beard bristled with anger. "I know what I saw."

"Do you have any idea where that planet might be?" Steve Rogers asked and Loki was not surprised that he had picked out the one detail that was not entirely beyond human comprehension.

He shook his head. "There really were no clues but locating his hiding place should not be our primary concern, Captain. You see," Loki elaborated when the other man frowned at him, "I have absolutely no way of knowing what Thanos knows. I know he picked up the Gauntlet while the Stones' astral projections were still linked with mine and noticed that they were glowing because of that—which, I suppose, he has not seen since the Snap—but what he will do with that knowledge, I couldn't say."

Again, the Avengers seemed too stunned to speak as they probably tried to make sense of the journey Loki had undertaken into dream. Rocket was the first to break the silence but what he said was of no value. "Damn, do you always have to talk so dramatically?"

Loki flashed him one of those smug, gleeful grins that almost reflexively appeared on his lips whenever he felt remotely affronted. "I guess you could say linguistic prowess is my superpower."

"What _could_ he do?" asked Stark, ignoring the exchange. "Theoretically? I mean, what are the possibilities?"

"If it's possible that he has already been alerted to your presence through that dream," Shuri added, "then isn't it also possible that he knows what you're planning and intercepts your attempt to free the Mind Stone?"

Loki shrugged. "While I was still _in_ that dream, I thought he might have access to this conversation through the Mind Stone but if I think about it now, it doesn't make much sense."

"So what you're saying is," Natasha Romanoff translated, "you are not sure and there _is_ a possibility that you might be leading him right to our doorstep."

"For the third time," Bruce noted in a low voice and Loki realized that the scientist's quiet consternation unnerved him more than the openly articulated distrust of the others.

"First of all, I am pretty sure he knows where you live anyways. Secondly, he cannot use the Stones anymore," Loki reminded them. "Otherwise they would not still be encased in the Gauntlet; which means that he cannot use the Space Stone to teleport himself. He would have to travel by ship and that would take him a while."

"He could also just hijack the connection you have with the Mind Stone and tell you to kill all of us with that thing," Clint Barton noted dryly. "Right?"

"You're never gonna let that mind-control thing go, are you?" Rocket grumbled.

Clint smiled sourly. "What can I say? It was kind of a life-changing experience."

"And I am _sorry_ about that," Loki acknowledged with as much sincerity as he could force into his voice. "It was truly nothing personal and, in my defense, I was only half aware of what I was doing." He feigned a deep-drawn sigh. "As much as it pains me to admit it, I was not much more than a puppet at that time. So, if you think about it, it was not really _me_ inside your head." He paused for effect. "It was Thanos."

The archer's lips parted in consternation and all color drained from his cheeks. "You mean …"

"Yes," said Loki. "He was controlling me when I wielded that scepter and every manipulation was not really mine, but his."

"So what you're saying is that … that this monster saw everything that you pulled out of my head?" Clint Barton whispered, aghast.

"Probably, yes," Loki admitted. "That's how I am relatively sure that he knows where you live."

"So _that's_ how he knew _me_ ," Stark mumbled, more to himself than to anyone in the room. His face paled and his lips started to tremble, and he drew in a deep breath, his hand clutching at his chest.

"I suppose 'glow-stick of destiny' was not an overstatement after all," Loki sighed quietly. He smiled when he saw the engineer's bewildered expression. "Isn't that how you referred to the scepter? As a glow-stick of destiny?"

"You re _mem_ ber such an irrelevant detail even though you claim to have been brainwashed into this whole thing?" Clint demanded, his features darkening. "What, do you remember our memories, too?"

Loki glimpsed into the mental shaft of his deeply buried memories but all he could retrieve was a bricolage of blurry faces and emotions. "Not really, no."

The Black Widow narrowed his eyes at him with growing suspicion. "You are telling me you remember Tony calling that goddamn scepter a glow-stick of destiny but you don't remember what you saw in Clint's mind even though you used his memories against me?"

"I suppose Stark seemed more significant to me than the two of you," Loki conceded, unable to hold back the marring words before they tumbled onto his tongue and out of his mouth in a misguided attempt to gain the upper hand for at least one moment. The right corner of Stark's mouth twitched into an almost-grin. Thor rolled his eyes in quiet frustration.

"I'm not sure if that counts as an apology," Clint grumbled.

"I'm not very good at apologies, I'm afraid," Loki replied. "So, let us get back to the point. In order to do what you suggested, he would also have to use the Mind Stone and, as I said—"

"Hold on," Captain America interrupted him. "Let's not discard your memories too quickly. What do you remember, _really_?"

Loki's heart plummeted into his stomach. After everything that had happened with the Infinity Stones, he had already expelled most of the horrific, identity-threatening torture memories back into the murky darkness of his subconscious; and he was by no means interested in pulling them back out. "Not much," he pressed out.

"This random, irrelevant detail proves that you have access to your memories of that time," Rogers persisted. "There might something buried inside your head that helps us understand Thanos better. So, tell us what you remember of Thanos, his plans, his goals, and the attack. How did you end up as his ally? What did he tell you of his plans? What did he want from you exactly?"

 _Damn you, Loki. Why can't you ever keep your accursed mouth shut when it matters the most?_ "Didn't his daughter already give you all this information?" he asked half-heartedly.

"What makes you think he shared all his secrets with _me_?" Nebula asked with that dead, empty expression on her face that still chilled Loki to the core.

"Plus, you promised to tell us everything," Stark pointed out. "Didn't you?"

The urge to bolt was nearly overwhelming but Loki knew that in order to keep the dark voice at bay, he had to prove to himself that he could be halfway honest for once. That he could play along. _Come on, just this once. If this is over, you can do whatever you want._ Loki heaved a sigh. "I did."

"So, you ended up falling from the Rainbow Bridge," Rogers began with a strained expression that attested to the effort he put into visualizing this image. "And then what?"

Loki glanced at Thor, who might have looked pained and somewhat contrite at his companions' request, but Loki knew that his brother too longed for answers. "I fell into a wormhole," Loki began and hardened his mental defenses against an ambush of the dark voice that would undoubtedly accompany these memories. _Best to palm them off with the physical pain first. That will superficially look as if you admit defeat while subliminally reminding them of your stamina and strength._ "I don't know for how long I fell. Everything sort of dissolves around you when you fall through space and it is quite … disorienting, to put it mildly. I don't fully remember the landing, either, since I was bereft of most of my senses. The only thing I do remember is an arrangement of rocks floating through the sky and that every bone in my body seemed to break when I landed on them. Or maybe they were already broken by the fall through space, I don't know. Suffice it to say that I remember pain; and a lot of it."

Thor's hand clumsily wandered to his back but he jerked away from his brother's touch. There were faint shadows of compassion flitting across the faces of the Avengers and, realizing that arousing their pity might ultimately help to mitigate their feelings of resentment towards him somewhat, Loki took a deep breath and lunged into the tale of his disgrace. _Well, into one chapter of it._ "My first clear memory is one of Thanos' children looming over my bed when I woke. I suppose, my armor had identified me as Asgardian because they demanded information about the location of the Infinity Stones from me. Thanos knew that at least the Tesseract had been in Odin's possession once and they wanted to know if it still was. I was in too much of a shock to speak, however." He flashed them a grin. "Hard to believe, isn't it, but I focused all my energy on healing my body and did not open my mouth for must have been days, which proved too long of a wait for them."

"That _is_ hard to believe," Stark noted.

"But I guess Thanos was afraid that Odin's army of Einherjar was going to search for me and hunt him down," Loki continued. _If only they had. If only I had never let go. If only I had never found out … Gosh, stop this nonsense, will you? Focus!_ "Apparently, he was loathe to wait until I would speak, so he came to me himself, scepter in hand. Healing my body had required so much of my mental energy that I found myself too weak to use a protection spell against the Mind Stone's intrusion and, surprise, he just pulled out everything he needed to know." He hid the pain of the humiliation beneath another lopsided grin.

"Which was what, exactly?" Bruce asked.

"That Asgard was weakened by the destruction of the Bifrost, that the allfather had no Infinity Stone in his possession and that the Tesseract was buried on a planet with no outer defense system to speak of," Loki replied. _Good. Keep their attention on the Realm Eternal_. "That was quite enough for him to initiate operation Chitauri."

"So, how did he win you over?" Captain America asked. "Did he really promise you dominion over our planet? Was that _really_ the deal? The Tesseract in exchange for the Earth?"

 _Here we go._ Loki glanced at Thor, who stood next to him, his expression hard as granite, eyes sparkling with suppressed anger. "It's more complicated than that," he settled on saying.

"It's really not that complicated," Barton objected. "Did he or did he not promise you the Earth in exchange for the Tesseract?"

"He did," Loki conceded, "but—"

"But why you?" Stark asked. "I mean, no offense, but what did he want with someone as traumatized and mentally unstable as you apparently were back then?"

Loki drew in a sharp breath. _This is going wonderful, isn't it?_

"Exactly," Romanoff concurred. "Why manipulate you into retrieving the Tesseract for him? Why not do it himself?"

"Because it was too early to reveal himself and his plan," Loki snarled. "He only possessed two Infinity Stones at that time and he couldn't risk being discovered so early in his quest to collect them all. He needed a scapegoat—someone to take the blame in case the invasion went wrong—and, unfortunately, I was the perfect choice."

" _How_ were you the perfect choice?" Stark asked again. "I still don't get it."

"Isn't that obvious?" Loki grumbled. "He knew I would make a believable villain because I had a believable reason to attack your planet. I wasn't just some disciple carrying out _his_ plan. I had revenge fantasies of my own and all he needed to do was to amplify my rage to make sure that I would act upon them." _Don't you dare reveal too much_ _and stop the goddamned growling, will you?_ "And it doesn't really matter anymore now, does it? The only thing that matters is that it worked," Loki hurried on, rubbing their own ignorance in their faces. "You all believed I attacked Midgard because I craved vengeance; you all believed that the attack was ultimately about Thor." Loki glanced at his brother. "Even you. I mean, you suspected at some point that there was someone else controlling me, I give you that, but you never pursued that thought after you captured me. You all thought until quite recently that _I_ was the one who initiated the attack and sought out an ally who would provide _me_ with an army. You never even suspected that this was all part of a much grander scheme."

"Dammit," Thor cried out and tore his fingers through his hair, his jaw working with anger. "How could I have been so _blind_?"

"Hey, relax, okay?" Rocket warned.

"And his grand plan has always been to annihilate half the universe?" Romanoff asked.

 _Finally._ "Well, yes and no," said Loki. "He didn't think of it in terms of annihilation. He thought of it in terms of salvation." The word left a bitter taste on his tongue. _Hear me and rejoice. This is salvation. Smile, for even in Death, you have become children of Thanos._ He suppressed the urge to gag.

"That's always been his motivation," Nebula concurred. "At least, that's the lie he fed to all of us."

"He did not lie to you," Loki sighed. "Not on purpose, anyway. He deceived himself. He truly believed that he was going to perform a miracle to liberate the universe from torment and he probably still believes it. He is delusional. That's what makes him so dangerous." _Oh, the irony._ Loki chuckled before he could stop himself. "The only way I know about his subconscious motivations is because he, probably unwillingly, revealed them to me through his manipulations." Loki forced himself to allow the memories in one more time. _Do you truly think this is suffering? No, Loki, you are coming to life for the first time._ "He thinks of suffering in terms of empowerment and believes pain to be the fabric of all life." Loki took a deep breath and quoted, " _True power can only be achieved through mastering pain_."

"That is why he did this to me too," Nebula added, her finger pointing to the mechanical parts on her face. "He wanted me to become stronger."

"So, he decimated half the universe to … what?" asked Rocket.

"To empower the half that remained," Bruce Banner concluded. He had hardly spoken at all since Loki had entered the room but the words he had uttered now weighed as heavily as if he had given an entire lecture.

"That's what I believe, yes," Loki said softly. "He believes that he has brought a new universe into being and he did it with loss, torment and suffering. A universe, crippled by pain, which will arise from the ashes like the proverbial Phoenix, its inhabitants hardened by their collective trauma. And he has _created_ it. He is its _God_. That is his legacy."

"That sick bastard," Stark spat.

"I should have gone for the fucking head," Thor growled, his jaw muscles working so hard now that he was probably going to shatter his teeth.

"I should have told father," whispered Loki and felt tears catching in the back of his throat. "But it is too late for should-have's and what-if's now." He cleared his throat. "For better or worse, Thanos' delusion is also what is ultimately bringing about his downfall right now." Finally, it was all beginning to make sense. "The Infinity Stones used to be artifacts but they are coming to life in order to break free from the Gauntlet; which is the only explanation for why they could talk to me like this in the first place. But their coming to life— _fully_ coming to life—will go hand in hand with their destruction and the destruction of everything that has been created with their magic."


	23. A position that demands great sacrifice

#23

"Why?" Rogers and Romanoff asked in unison just as Bruce and Shuri asked, "How?"

Loki cursed silently. _I told you that already, didn't I? Why can't you at least try to listen?_ "Because their use requires purity of intent," Loki replied, hoping that his voice would not convey his growing annoyance at the fact that the group of so-called heroes in front of him was determined to confront Thanos again even though they so obviously had tremendous difficulties in trying to grasp the true nature of the Infinity Stones. Loki sighed and repeated what they had told him about their imminent doom once more. "Apparently, their powers were never _meant_ to be used for such monumental alterations to the universe and now that they have, the stones are, for want of a better word, compelled to destroy themselves to compensate for it."

"Why am I not surprised that his plan to wipe out half the universe might very well result in wiping out _all_ of it?" Nebula snorted but none of the others replied. Again, Loki's explanation had left the assembled Avengers in front of him struggling for words.

"What makes you so sure of that?" Rogers asked eventually. "Nothing you told us proves for sure it couldn't have been Thanos who just came up with the entire imminent destruction of the universe story to lure you into a trap, so that you can take the remaining Avengers apart from the inside _for_ him. You helped him once. Why not try to enlist your services again?"

"Because he kinda fucked up?" Stark reminded his companion. "He came to Earth with one Infinity Stone to retrieve another and lost both of them. I'm not sure Thanos would've had a whole lot of faith in him after New York."

 _So much for_ _mitigating their feelings of resentment and distrust towards me_ , Loki thought sourly. "I would love to say that you just have to trust me, Captain," he jested, "but since I can hardly expect you to do that, let me ask you a question instead: Why would he seek me out if he thinks I am dead?"

"Because the glowing of the Stones and the, what did you call it, _signature_ of your magic in it alerted him and showed him that you're not?" Bruce asked back.

Loki felt the familiar urge to lash out stir inside him when he realized just how little they were willing to believe he could be of any help to them; particularly after he had swallowed the bitter pill and revealed at least part of his misery to them. However, before he could say anything he would most definitely come to regret later, Thor, his face still a grimace of anger, rushed to his defense. "Or _maybe_ you're all just trying to find reasons not to trust him."

"It's not as if there is a lot of evidence telling us that we can," the Black Widow pointed out but even as she said those words, Loki could see the expression of hostile distrust on her face soften into something that one could graciously interpret as ruefulness. She looked first at Thor, then at him. "No offense, really, but there is too much at stake here. You can't really expect us to pin all our hopes on the workings of your unstable mind."

 _The woman has a point, Loki._ "What makes you think my mind is still _that_ unstable? Do I really seem in any way crazy to you right now?" He stretched out his arms and mimicked an innocent smile. "I mean, come on, please. What makes you think I am not in full command of my mental faculties at this very moment?"

"Your facial expression changes about every thirty seconds," Shuri pointed out.

"And so does your voice," Bruce added. "It's unnerving, really."

 _Why did we think the mortals beneath us again? Some of them are so astute it is outright scary._ Loki sighed. "Well, I can assure you my mind is a lot more stable than it used to be and you have nothing to fear." _As long as I can keep the dark voice in the cesspit where it belongs._

"It's true," Thor agreed in voice that barely managed to contain his suppressed rage. "I swear to you that he is almost sane."

"But maybe," Tony Stark countered, his hickory-colored eyes suddenly alight with dark humor, "an _insane_ mind is exactly what we need right now."

Pepper frowned. "Are you sure _you_ are in full command of your mental faculties at this very moment, Tony?"

"A psychopath to fight a psychopath," Stark went on. "It's brilliant, actually."

"I'm _not_ a psychopath," Loki protested at the same time as Pepper said, "It's dangerous and stupid."

"All I'm saying is that Icicle's mind over here comes up with stuff that might turn out to be quite useful against Thanos if we scrape off all the layers of crazy," Stark concluded.

Loki was not sure what had happened and when it had happened, but somewhere between Stark's threat to wipe the grin off his face on the plane and now, the self-proclaimed genius had started looking at him less and less with disdain and more and more with curiosity. By Hel, he seemed almost intrigued by Loki's delusions. "You make an insult like a compliment, Stark."

"It was a compliment," Stark conceded as he threw his hands up in the air. A few drops of his whiskey sloshed over the rim of his glass and splashed onto his shirt. "Well, half a compliment," he backpedaled. "Twenty-five percent of a compliment. I mean, no one can say it's not fascinating what's happening up there, right?" He indicated his temples with his index finger.

"Are you really being serious right now?" Rogers asked as Clint Barton exhaled a long breath and Pepper's forehead twisted into a suspicious frown.

"It's Tony," grumbled Thor. "What do _you_ think?"

"Okay, enough with the banter. Where do we stand on this?" Natasha Romanoff asked, turning to Bruce. "I think we should take a vote."

"Before you do that," Loki chimed in, "consider one more thing for a moment: Why would Thanos tell me how to free the Mind Stone?"

"Because of what you said," Shuri replied. "They're bound to the Gauntlet, which is unusable. Maybe he plans to use you to get them out because he can't do it himself. And when you're done, he comes to collect them."

"That sounds like a plan of his," Nebula agreed.

"Another explanation why he would suggest such a thing is because it's simply _impossible_ ," Valkyrie added. "Wielding the stones and controlling their power from the outside is exertive enough but trying to internalize its power? All of it? That is madness."

 _Absolutely_ , Loki thought. It was sheer and utter madness; in other words, it was a very Loki thing to do. He flashed her a grin. "Madness is sort of my thing."

"And yet you claimed to be sane not two minutes ago," Bruce pointed out with an anxious smile tugging at his lips.

 _Oops_. _My bad._

"Loki, if this plan of yours really works—if you can really pull the stone's essence away with your mind—its power is going to _kill_ you," Valkyrie insisted. _Oh look, is that concern on her face? How sweet._ "If Thanos knows you're alive again and still wants you dead, this is certainly the way to do it."

 _That or it might use this chance and take possession of me. I am not sure what would be worse._

The alarmed look on Thor's face told Loki that his brother had not even considered this possibility at all. "Wait, _what_?"

 _Sweet, simple Thor. Never one for thinking, were you?_ Loki gave a half-shrug that he hoped would conceal his own insecurity regarding that tiny little detail. The Infinity Stones might have faith in this endeavor and after everything that they had revealed to him about Asgard and his past, he knew he should probably believe them. Worse than that, however, Loki suddenly found himself overwhelmed by an inexplicable urgency to carry out the Mind Stone's instructions and his heart sank when he realized the possible implications behind that urge. _Did it take possession of me again?_ Panic crept up the back of his neck. _Are they right to assume Thanos is behind this? Or is it the Mind Stone itself?_ He flicked a suspicious glance towards the scepter's inanimate replica that Tony Stark was still holding in his hands. _Am I truly acting out of free will right now?_

 _Of course, you are,_ replied his God of Mischief voice. _Earning their forgiveness and gratitude to extricate yourself from the dark voice's influence is what you want, is it not?_

Loki drew a breath. This was what he wanted more than anything but how could he be certain that Mind had not planted the seeds of that want while he had lain unconscious, his thoughts vulnerable to cosmological interference?

 _Does it matter as long as we get rid of that foul-mouthed deviant?_

He considered the question for a moment, turning it over inside his head, looking at it from all sides. _I suppose not_ , Loki thought and forced himself to look his brother straight in the eye. "That is a very unlikely outcome. Just think about it. What good would it do if I died with the stone's power locked inside my mind?"

"You cannot possibly—" Thor growled but he was interrupted by a muffled sound similar to that of a crack opening in stone, which was followed by a near translucent glimmer of energy that wafted through the air and left behind a trail of faintly rainbow-colored sparks. Suddenly, the ground shook and reality blurred slightly at the edges of Loki's vision. Those who were standing instinctively stretched out their arms as if they were standing on the deck of a ship and needed to counterbalance the force of the waves. "What the hell," Rocket mumbled at the same moment Natasha Romanoff asked, "What is _that_?"

"An earthquake?" asked Pepper.

"This is no earthquake," Shuri replied with a grim look outside while all the following things happened at once: Thor reached for the Stormbreaker he had positioned against the kitchen counter and his Midgardian clothing metamorphosed into his Asgardian armor in flashes of white. Captain America sprang to his feet and his entire body tensed into attack mode. Tony Stark dropped his glass and tapped his chest and, out of nowhere, his armor materialized around his frame with a crackling noise. Valkyrie positioned herself protectively in front of Rocket and Pepper, whose eyes widened in disbelief; horror; bewilderment.

Loki's lips curled into a triumphant grin as he felt the magical signature ripple through the air. "Now, do you still think the unraveling of the universe is just a ruse, Captain?" he asked as, outside, the smudgy gray of the clouded night began to part, revealing a glimpse into broad daylight through an opening the size and shape of a small wormhole, the edges of which were shimmering in a faint green.

"The Time Stone," mumbled Nebula. "Do you really think that freeing the Mind Stone from the Gauntlet will stop the Stones from destroying themselves and undoing the fabric of the universe?"

"I don't know," Loki admitted. "But they are bound to the Gauntlet together and if one of them changes hands, it might break the curse. A new wielder who hasn't yet betrayed them might evoke their true spirit once more." Even to him, it sounded conclusive enough. "And even if it doesn't, it might at least buy us some time." He glanced first outside and then at the clock for emphasis. When no more objections came, he extended his hand once more. "Will you trust me with the scepter now?"

"I think so," replied Rogers. The others nodded in vague, hesitant agreement.

The clock read twenty-four minutes after ten when Iron Man handed him the scepter and Loki's fingers closed around the cold surface of its handle. The touch brought back the intense memory of a sense of power and superiority surging through him on Midgard when he had threatened the mortals with that scepter after lying helpless at the titan's feet for so long. Loki could almost taste their fear on his tongue and felt his body react as strongly to the sensation as if he was back on that forecourt in Germany. He suppressed a moan as he tightened his fingers around the scepter, thinking, _Nice to see that this body part works no differently for Jotuns_. "Does that mean I have your permission to proceed?"

Thor lunged out and wrenched the scepter from his hands. "Not a chance. We'll find another way."

"I suppose we don't really have the time to find another way," mumbled Iron Man with a jerk of his head towards the window. "Do it, Polar Boy."

Loki put his hands on the scepter and tried to pull it back. "Stop being stupid," he hissed. "Look outside, brother. This is our only chance right now and we are going to do this."

Thor held on to the scepter with all his thrice-damned muscle strength. "No."

"I thought you wanted me to have some sort of salvific experience?" Loki mocked quietly. "Well, this is it, I suppose." He pulled harder. "Now give me the scepter."

"Give him the scepter," said Rogers but Thor still held stubbornly on.

"Do you truly have so little faith in my abilities?" Loki snarled but quickly recollected himself upon the sight of his brother's expression. He held up both of his hands and took a step back. "Right. Foolish question. How is this then? Why do you think that I will fail to contain the stone's energy when your sweet little _mortal_ girlfriend survived the full power of the Aether flowing through her veins?"

Valkyrie's jaw dropped. " _What_?"

"That … that was different," Thor stammered.

"Ah, yes? Different how?" Loki snapped. "Oh please, enlighten me, brother." Of course, he _knew_ that it had been different. The Reality Stone had merely warranted a host. It had contained its power and never unleashed the whole of it into Jane Foster's mind the way the Mind Stone was planning to do. If it had, her mortal form would have shattered immediately. But Loki guessed that his brother was not aware of this and he guessed right. Thor bristled at Loki's impeachment, his fingers tightening around the weapons in both of his hands, and suddenly fell back into old patterns. "Have care how you speak to me."

Loki grunted his disapproval but even though Thor's resurfacing superiority complex was more than annoying, he did not take the bait. _He is clearly agitated. Just leave him be. If he loses his temper again now, neither of you is going to earn the forgiveness of the Avengers any time soon._

"What is it with you guys?" Rocket asked Thor. "I mean, _seriously_? One minute, you want to protect him, the next you want to punch him in the face. You two really have a very weird relationship."

Valkyrie shook her head at the raccoon. "Not a good time."

"Weird relationship," Thor repeated before he heaved a deep sigh and continued to speak through clenched teeth, both the Stormbreaker and the scepter still gripped firmly in his hands. "Yeah, maybe relationships do get a little weird when you have to watch your own brother getting himself killed in front of your eyes again and again and _again_ and you never know if it's gonna be for real or not!"

 _So, that's what this is about. He mourns for you and, oh boy, doesn't that feel_ _ **good**_ _?_

 _Shut up_ , Loki snapped. It was certainly not only that. Thor was anxious, yes, but he was also furious, which was quite understandable in the face of all the failures and the helplessness he was struggling against, but Loki sensed that there was still more to it than that. His brother's expression had hardened at some point after they had joined the Avengers and he could not begin to guess what was weighing so heavily on his mind.

"Brother, please," Loki pleaded softly and fixed his gaze on Thor as if they were the only two people left in the room. "You're embarrassing both of us right now." When Thor still made no move to release his grip on the handle, Loki paused and sifted through his inventory of dramatic speeches. "Don't you understand? The allfather is dead, Thor," Loki continued in a solemn whisper, summoning all his eloquence. "Technically, that makes you the allfather now and we both know that this is a position that demands great sacrifice. Your father understood this. He made unspeakable sacrifices so that you could grow up safe, happy and protected in the Golden City. And if you truly want to save this universe, it's about time for you to step up and do the same."

Next to him, Valkyrie let out a snort that was both derisive and admiring. Tears started gleaming in in his brother's eyes. "I'm not ready to make this kind of sacrifice," Thor replied hoarsely. "Not _again_. There _must_ be another way and we're gonna find it."

A slow, grateful smile touched Loki's lips and he felt his own eyes sting a little. "You have to be ready," he whispered and yanked the scepter from Thor's loosening grip. "Now."

Feeling all eyes on him, Loki took the replica of the Mind Stone out of its casing in the scepter. "It's purple," he mumbled to distract himself from the lump of fear that was forming inside his throat.

"It's raw vibranium," Shuri said by way of an answer.

Loki's fingers closed around the gem. "I am going to do it now," he whispered in a voice that was dripping with reluctance. "And whatever happens, do not try to interrupt me. If I lose the connection while the stone's energy is still inside my mind, well, I suppose you can all imagine what happens to me."

Thor gulped so loud that the noise echoed through the room. From the corner of his eye, Loki saw Valkyrie move closer to his brother.

His stomach vibrating with fear, Loki closed his eyes and quickly recalled to his mind a few memories of the past twenty-four hours. Thor drawing him into his muscular arms after Loki had spent almost a decade deprived of any meaningful physical contact; Thor's acknowledgment of Loki's strength; Thor's assertion that he did not regret to have brought his little brother back; Thor's promise that Loki was not alone unless he chose to be. He cherished the memories for a moment before he visualized a small treasure chest, placed them inside and murmured a locking spell that secured the chest with a mental latch. _No matter what happens_ , Loki thought defiantly, _these are mine and nobody is going to take them away from me._

He steeled himself with one last breath and then conjured up the dreamscape with its forested hills, zooming in on the scarecrow, the wooden cabin, the porch, the marred Gauntlet resting on it. The Mind Stone softly called his name as he closed his fingers tighter around the stone and his astral projection landed on the grassland. _I am here,_ whispered Loki as his fingers curled around the scepter's handle in the physical world. _I have the vessel._

The Gauntlet released the Mind Stone's incarnation just as it had done before. _Good. Focus on it. Fix it in your mind so that I can find it quickly and then let me in._

Suddenly, Loki felt another presence. He jerked around and saw the titan sitting on a rock nearby, staring directly onto the porch, his purple forehead wrapped in a deep frown. Loki stumbled backwards, his chest tightening with a fear so intense that it left him numb and paralyzed, gasping for air. He instinctively tried to break out of the dream but the Mind Stone was faster and held him back with such a force that his vision began to swim.

 _Pay him no attention_. _This is_ _ **your**_ _dream, Loki. He is merely a projection of your fear. He can't see you. Now, make haste._

Loki blinked to coerce his surroundings back into focus and timidly glanced at the titan, who, even though he seemed to be looking directly at him, gave no sign of recognition. _But won't he see your colors sparkle and then fade?_ Loki asked, his voice trembling. _And what will happen to the Gauntlet and the other stones if you are gone?_

 _I am sure it will suspend our compulsion to self-destruct._

 _And if it doesn't?_

 _Well, in that case, the universe is going to implode and all of you are going to die._ Mind flashed him a slow, hesitant smile. _Which is also what I can assure you will_ _ **definitely**_ _happen soon if you do not get me out of here now._

Loki did not find the words to reply.

 _It is simple, really_ , said the Mind Stone. _Are you going to choose the scenario in which death is a certainty or the one in which it is merely a possibility?_

 _Possibility sounds better, I suppose_ , Loki allowed.

 _I thought so. Now, focus on the vessel and open your mind to me._

Loki gulped down the fear that he would die another painful death at the hands of an Infinity Stone—or Thanos—and took a deep breath before he did as instructed. For what must have been minutes, he felt no different but, suddenly, all of the Mind Stone's energy seemed to pour into his head at once; and instantly set every nerve in his brain on fire.

* * *

 _Author's Note :_  
 _\- While writing this, I had parts of_ Sound of Silence _stuck in my ear, so here are the lyrics that go with it:_  
 _"Because a vision softly creeping_  
 _Left its seeds while I was sleeping_  
 _And the vision that was planted in my brain_  
 _Still remains_  
 _Within the sound of silence"_  
 _\- And oh, I couldn't quite resist including Tony's comment about percentages._


	24. I suppose I still am a God

#24

Thor's heart gave a desperate lurch when Loki's fingers closed tightly around the replica of the Mind Stone. He was worried—yes, he was worried sick—but apart from that, he had been going mad with rage on the inside ever since Loki had insinuated that the seventh Infinity Stone might be nothing but a giant cosmic ruse. If that was indeed true, he could have fought Hela without simultaneously trying to figure out what the existence of this stone meant for the war against Thanos and if he had been able to do that, he was sure he could have won. _Damn me_ , Thor thought, his thoughts sinking deeper and deeper into a black pit of despair. _Am I truly that stupid? Did this murderous hag really deceive me so easily? What am I trying to accomplish here?_

The last hours—days?—whooshed past Thor's mind's eye in a blur: Loki coming back from Hel, brainwashed and furious, with sapphire skin and blazing red eyes, painting him as the antagonist and blaming him for his misery as if no time at all had passed since their return to Asgard after the Chitauri's invasion of New York. Their fragile reconciliation shortly after. Thor finally getting through to Loki for the first time in decades. Loki confronting his long-buried demons, sobbing helplessly against his chest. Thor choosing him over the Avengers; the Avengers not accepting his decision, making all sorts of demands after tracking him down. Loki's unexpected offer to help them. Their revelations on the plane. The short but fateful return of Loki's villainous tendencies. Tony's impulse to choke his brother with his Iron Man hands. Thor himself torn apart by a largely misplaced yet overwhelmingly strong protective instinct in response to this. The release of a thunderbolt inside Tony's plane that had jeopardized his friends' lives. Loki deciding to save them. The Infinity Stones hijacking his mind in the process to prevent their impending self-destruction, the threat of which was visible outside their window in form of a slightly but steadily growing portal that was ripping apart the fabric of time.

So much had happened since he'd last had a decent sleep—not counting the fifteen or so minutes he had dozed off by Loki's bedside—that Thor felt his mind was about to shatter into a million pieces. He still had difficulties to grasp that, by an unpredictable twist of fate, his little brother was now standing amidst his former adversaries with eyes closed in concentration, clutching the key that could put a stop to the unraveling of the universe and turn the tide of the war against Thanos in their favor. During their strange, dreamlandish encounter, the Infinity Stones had apparently offered him a monumental chance at redemption and Loki had woken up cognizant of it, seemingly determined to make the most of it by casting all previous resentments aside. Thor could not rule out the possibility that he was doing so on a whim because he had nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, but, then again, how could he expect more than whims at this point? Even his companions had noticed that Loki was still riding his own private emotional rollercoaster of painful confusion, arrogantly sneering at Thor's stupidity one moment and silently pleading for his approval the next.

The worst thing, however, was that Loki's newfound—feigned?—altruism also meant that he seemed willing to hazard the consequence of sacrificing himself for the greater good. Thor had thought he had done this already aboard the Statesman but as he now knew, his brother's motivations had been more intricate than that and, besides, Loki hadn't had any witnesses back then. This time, he was parading his change of a heart in front of the very people who had thought him their enemy until very recently and most of them were more or less rising to the bait, Tony most of all. The engineer had still been furious back on the ice but when it had become clear on the flight back to New York that Loki was not going to wake up any time soon, he had somehow softened. He had not even raised objections when Thor had made it clear that he would not let them confine Loki to a locked room as if he were a prisoner. And ever since he and Loki had entered the conference room earlier, Tony had been eying his brother with a curiosity that was unnerving Pepper beyond measure. He had his intent gaze fixed upon Loki's closed eyes even now, his brown eyes sparkling with anticipation and an unmistakable trace of admiration.

 _If only you knew what I did to bring him back here_ , Thor thought, disheartened, every fiber in his entire body revolting against the predicament into which he had maneuvered himself as he watched his brother make a silent, mental pact with the Mind Stone that seemed to be taking forever. Thor's heart had assured Valkyrie that he was going to put Loki first from now on—and he had meant every word of it—but his sense of responsibility had also silently promised his dead father that he was not going to disregard the needs of the mortals he had sworn to protect. That he was striving to be a better protector of the Nine Realms than Odin had found it in himself to be. Seeing Loki in the middle of the conference room of the Avengers facility now, courting his own death yet again, Thor finally realized that he would never be able to keep both of those promises. He could not help Loki and save the universe at the same time. If he truly wanted to be an Avenger and a protector with his heart and soul, he could neither make room for his brother's mad impulses nor his dubious morality. Choosing Loki's mental well-being over that of the rest of the universe ultimately meant to betray his duties as king of Asgard. Valkyrie knew this. The Avengers probably knew it too. Apparently, even Loki knew it; and had taken the impossible decision for him.

Thor's stomach was twisting with fear at the mere thought of losing Loki once more because he had agreed to accompany the Avengers to New York even though he should have been aware of the fact that following them to New York meant shunting his brother aside. _Again_.

 _If neglecting the only family I have left is what it takes to be king,_ thought Thor, despair gnawing at his every organ, _I do not want to be one. I should have sent them away_. _I should have_ —

Finally, Loki moved and stifled a groan of pain that jolted Thor out of his self-pitying thoughts. He reached out instinctively when his brother began to stagger backwards with the scepter still gripped in his left and the replica of the Mind Stone enclosed in his right hand, but Valkyrie held his arm back, murmuring, "Thor, no."

Loki clumsily sat down on the armrest of one of the lounge chairs, moaning as his head tilted back and his eyes snapped open, their blood red taking on a soft yellowish glow. Thor heard the others murmur but none of them moved as much as an inch. Loki's fingers gripped the replica of the Mind Stone so tightly that his knuckles stood out white against the sapphire blue of his fingers. Once again, Thor had to watch the illusion of his brother's clothing dissolve before his very eyes. Once again, he could do nothing but stand idly by as Loki withdrew far too deep into his own mind.

"Holy shit," whispered Tony.

"This is gonna kill him," repeated Nebula and a tiny part of Thor was outrageously contemplating the fact that he might be able to circumvent Hela's bargain if Loki did not survive this ordeal and no one would ever have to know what outrageous thing he had agreed to.

"No!" Thor lunged forward to put his hand on Loki's shoulder but once again, Valkyrie yanked him back. "Did you not hear what he said?" she asked tonelessly.

"This isn't worth it," Thor whimpered, only half-aware of the hot tears that began to stream down his cheeks. Valkyrie's fingers laced around his and squeezed his hand tightly. Loki's grip around the scepter loosened and it clattered to the floor, the chink of its impact reverberating through the room.

"Brother, please," Thor pleaded quietly as he knelt down beside his brother, his chest tightening with concern and rage at Loki's flagrant recklessness. The sight of his brother sitting in front of him, his empty gaze enshrouded in the Mind Stone's yellowish gleam, blurred into the images of Loki falling from the Bifrost, his eyes glistering with tears of hopelessness as his entire sense of self was crumbling away; of Loki's body turning blue on the rocky plains of Svartalfheim as he intimately whispered his concocted apologies; of Thanos almost casually tossing Loki's body at his feet in the wreckage of the Asgardian refugee ship. "I am begging you to stop." The words came out in a broken whisper. "Please, I can't lose you again."

Yet Loki could no longer hear or see what transpired around him. The glow in his eyes intensified and then began to spread out across his face, his hair, his shoulders, his arms. Within less than a minute, flashes of yellow light encased his entire body, their crackling uncannily magnified by the anxious silence filling up the room. Loki threw back his head and, teeth gritted, heaved a heart-piercing groan, his arm shooting upwards and blindly groping about in the air before his fingers dug into the armor on Thor's arm for support.

"Isn't there anything we can do?" Thor howled, his entire being cracking from within as he realized that he might fail to save his younger brother yet again. He searched for Valkyrie's eyes and the endless knowledge in them but she shook her head, her body frozen in shock. "He said not to—"

"To hell with what he _said_!" Rocket shouted at her. "Take his hand! You're fucking Gods! Take a bit of the power off him! We did that before when we snatched the Power Stone from Ronan and we're mortal!"

Even though he had no clue what the rabbit was talking about, Thor grabbed his brother's hand that had been digging into his arm and wrapped it in both of his. Valkyrie too obliged and knelt down beside Loki, closing her fingers around the hand that was holding the Mind Stone's duplicate. Thor waited, steeling himself for the inevitable, but no surge of energy slammed into him. The room remained silent except for the Mind Stone's soft crackling and Loki's muffled groaning.

"It's not working," Thor cried out. "Why is it not _working_?"

"Weird," was Rocket's only response. The others began to stir nervously around him, breaking out into panicked jabbering, but Thor paid them no attention.

"Because it's _internal_ ," gasped Valkyrie. Cursing under her breath, she let go of Loki's hand and inspected her palm for signs of damage. "This is not … I don't …"

"Loki," pleaded Thor. "Loki, _please_." His own palms were beginning to tingle as well but he could not care less about the frostbite his brother's touch was going to inflict upon him as he continued to squeeze Loki's hand, sending a silent prayer to the Mind Stone. _Please, I'm begging you, don't kill him. He's just beginning to heal and you can't take that away from him_. _Not now. Please, oh please, spare his life. Let us have this last fucking chance_.

After a few more agonizing moments, Loki's right hand slackened a little and revealed a glimpse of Shuri's vibranium replica through his fingers, faint traces of yellow now lacing its purple surface.

"He's doing it," Tony mumbled incredulously while Steve and the others articulated their consternation with murmurs and bewildered stares.

"I can't believe it's really working," Nebula whispered in astonishment as the flashes of light crackling all around Loki's body in shades of orange and yellow slowly began to zigzag towards the replica with soft hissing noises.

Loki breathed out in relief. The tension in his chest finally easing, Thor let go of his brother's left hand and flexed his fingers. A few moments later, the tingling sensation in his palms had almost subsided and the once-purple stone locked loosely in Loki's hand had finally absorbed the Mind Stone's colors. It was glistening in a bright lemon yellow now, emitting near-translucent shimmers of energy into the room; but none of those present took notice of this.

* * *

"Shit, you really did it!" Tony exclaimed as he and the others crowded in around them.

"I can't believe you were right," said Natasha and gestured outside, where no trace of the window into daylight remained. Not that anyone seemed to have taken heed of the rift in time during Loki's reckless endeavor. "The portal's gone."

"Thank God," said Bruce.

Loki himself gave no sign of recognition. He was sitting on the edge of the armrest with his lips standing slightly apart, his gaze entirely blank. Fear gripped Thor once more, its icy fingers crawling down his back. He grabbed his brother by the shoulders and shook him fiercely. "Loki!"

"Hey, wake up!" Tony yelled.

"Shit," mumbled Natasha, her expression darkening as the edge of Loki's pupils started to flicker in a bright blue.

"We should have known better," Steve grumbled just as Clint pointed out, "I told you so."

Valkyrie leaned over and, in a presence of mind that Thor could never hope to possess, reached for the stone in Loki's hand but, even in his trance, his brother slapped her hand away and tightly curled his fingers around it. Tony swirled around, grabbed a glass of water from the table and poured it over Loki's head. A few drops began to crystallize against his check.

"As if that's gonna help," scoffed Natasha. "You've got to hit him."

Rocket gasped. "Erm … what?"

"Slap him out of it," Bruce agreed.

"It's the only thing that worked last time," said Clint.

Wrecked with tension and incapable of reflecting on the value of their advice, Thor smacked Loki's face so violently that he could feel his brother's mandible splinter beneath his palm. Valkyrie gave a jump, crying out his name in disbelief, but Loki remained unresponsive.

"On the _head_!" Natasha yelled at him.

The phrase brought back a most unwanted memory. Thor hesitated for a moment. Steve, however, did not. He reached for his shield and slammed it against the left side of Loki's head. Rocket, Pepper, Valkyrie and Nebula startled at the captain's act of violence. The men held their breath. A few seconds later, Loki blinked, and then squeezed his eyes and mouth shut with a soft moan.

"Loki?" Thor whispered, his heart anxiously thudding against his chest with the force of an ancient war drum.

Loki slowly opened one eye, then the other, his lids fluttering. "I am … fine," he breathed. His hand wandered from his left cheek to his temple and massaged it softly, his face frowning with pain.

Steve had the good grace to bite his lip. "Did it … hurt?"

Loki squinted a few more times before he looked up at them and registered the expression on their faces. "A little more than I would have expected but it's nice to see you all so worried," he whispered, a weak grin scurrying across his face. "Even though, I suppose, you're not really worried about _me_."

Thor gave a tear-choked laugh and tackled his brother in a hug as the others around him let out a collective breath of relief. Loki squirmed free and shot him a reproachful look. "What are you doing? You'll just get burned again."

Thor found himself unable to form a coherent thought as the adrenaline that had built up inside his body for the past minutes—hour?—finally began to wear off.

"How can you even hold that thing?" asked Rocket. "Shouldn't you be on fire?"

"I'm a G—" Loki stopped himself. He lowered his head, uncurled his fingers and inspected the Mind Stone. "I suppose I still am a God," he said softly, rolling the gem around his palm with his fingers, smiling with both self-satisfaction and incredulity. The illusion of another black shirt, this one a little more casual than the last, enshrouded his naked torso in a faint emerald sheen.

Valkyrie turned away with an almost-smile playing upon her lips and poured herself a generous drink. Loki's gaze tracked her movements before he looked up at Tony, the sparkle of mischievous humor returning to his eyes. "You promised me one of those a few years ago. Does that offer still stand?"

Tony's lips twitched into half-grin. "Sure." He pushed the arc reactor on his ironclad chest that sucked his armor into it and then went to the table where he poured Loki a drink that was even more generous than the one Valkyrie had just poured herself.

"Wait a minute," said Shuri, her eyes narrowing at Loki as Tony handed him the drink. "This green magic that just appeared on your body?"

Loki emptied half of the glass in one slug and raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

Shuri looked outside for emphasis. "The portal's edge was shimmering in the same color."

It took a moment for the meaning behind those words to register with Thor but when it did, he felt an all-too familiar spark of anger mixed with disappointment ignite in his chest. "Did you really—"

"He tricked us," Valkyrie spoke over him. "Of course he did."

Loki tossed back the rest of his drink and smiled at them; his blue face a mask of innocence. "Why would I do _that_?" He bit back a giggle. "I mean, in this particular case?"

"Because you're a manipulative little cheat," Valkyrie hissed.

Loki smiled wanly. "I just risked my life and my sanity to retrieve the Mind Stone for you. I dare say your unfounded accusations are both inappropriate and impolite. I had no reason to—"

"Of course you did," Natasha cut him off. "We would never have agreed to this reckless plan if the portal hadn't convinced us that there was _urgent_ need for action!"

"This wasn't me," Loki insisted and, to his dismay-quickly-transforming-into-anger, Thor could not tell whether his little brother was lying. "What you saw was a rift in time, yes? The Time Stone's magic is green, just like mine."

"It is," Nebula confirmed.

"See?" Loki flashed them another innocent smile. "It was just an unlucky coincidence."

Clint grumbled an insult and took a step forward but Tony stepped in and positioned himself between Loki and the archer. "Come on. Whatever else he did, he did retrieve the fucking Mind Stone. Will you cut him some slack for once?"

"Since when do you trust him?" yelled Steve. " _Why_ are you defending him?"

"In dubio pro reo, right?" Tony sneered. "You should know that better than anyone, actually."

Subtle energies wafted through the air on an invisible current and, within a matter of seconds, chaos erupted among the Avengers. Steve and Tony approached each other and began to argue, spitting out accusations; fists clenching, veins throbbing, eyes flaring. Pepper accused Tony of being obnoxious and stormed out of the room. Clint and Natasha sided with Steve, barking at Tony, while Nebula sided with the engineer, snarling at Steve. Valkyrie helped herself to a refill while Rocket and Bruce were yelling at their companions to stop. Shuri turned away and focused her attention back on her computer screen. Loki raised his eyebrows in derogatory amusement. "My, they are so petty, aren't they?"

The chuckle that escaped Loki's lips fueled Thor's anger even more. Oblivious of the fact that he too had once thought them petty, Thor grumbled, "Stop judging them. You have no idea what they've been through."

Loki grunted. "Knowing what _I_ have been through doesn't quite stop them from judging _me_ , does it?"

 _The Norns damn him_. Thor narrowed his eyes at his brother and tried to stifle the unreasonably strong resentment at Loki's alleged deception, searching his face for the slightest trace of malevolence. "Please tell me I can trust you?"

Loki's disdainful smile turned astonishingly sincere. "Yes, brother. You can trust me." He lowered his head and studied the stone inside his hand with a thoughtful expression, frowning ever so slightly, before he handed it to him. "Here." Thor took it hesitantly, suddenly in awe of the ancient powerful magic in their grasp. "Take it," said Loki. "Take it as a token of my good faith. A peace offering for all my past offenses, if you wish."

Thor felt the stone stir against his palm, pulsating like a beating heart. The others were still flaring at each other and, finally, the Thundergod began to understand where his own anger was coming from. "It really is alive."

Loki gave a hesitant nod. "It is."

Thor jerked his head towards his bickering companions. "And it's manipulating us."

Loki nodded again.

Thor exhaled, picked up the scepter and carefully inserted the glowing stone into the fitting but before he could say anything, Bruce slammed his hand on the table and shouted, "Alright, stop! All of you! Don't you guys realize what's happening here? We've been at this exact point before! Six years ago, aboard the Helicarrier, that same stone tried to rile us up. It's not Thanos or Loki or anyone else. It's the stone itself. It's sentient and it's amplifying your emotions _right now_!"

The scientist's words squelched the fight in an instant. Tony and Steve stumbled backwards, their mouths hanging slightly open. Clint looked as if he'd been hit by a lightning blast. Nat and Nebula looked away, contrite.

"So, what the hell are we gonna do with that thing now?" asked Rocket, flicking a side-glance at Loki. "How is it gonna be helpful if it's so fucking dangerous?"

"More importantly, if the stone is really acting on its own behalf, what does it want?" Valkyrie added and tossed back the rest of her drink before she placed her empty glass on the table with a chink. "I mean, it's no mystery what the Soul Stone wants but the Mind Stone? I never heard—"

"It is a mystery to us," Bruce reminded her.

"The Soul Stone longs for the souls of beings living and dead," Nebula said quietly, "longing to steal them, to control them, and to change them; in order to change the very essence of life itself."

"To what purpose?" Steve asked.

"Power," said Loki and the single world hung heavily in the air for a few seconds.

"Are you saying that the Soul Stone … claimed our friends?" Steve asked tonelessly and the pain in his eyes sucked all the air out of Thor's lungs.

"Not precisely," said Loki. "The Soul World is inhabited by all the souls of those who died at the hands of the Infinity Stone wielders. This is on Thanos."

"So, it won't … hurt them?" Clint whispered, his lips trembling.

"It might," Nebula conceded quietly and Thor thought of all the Asgardians he had lost when Thanos had snapped his fingers, his stomach clenching.

For a moment, nobody spoke.

"But the Soul Stone ain't our biggest problem right now," Rocket pointed out quietly, nodding towards the scepter. "What's this thing's agenda? Why is it messing with our brains right now?"

Loki sighed. Something flickered in his eyes that but it was gone so quickly that Thor had no time to identify what it meant. "I don't know."

Steve had apparently not missed the spark either. "There's something you're not telling us." He glowered at Loki. "What is it?"

"I would tell you," said Loki with one of the sincerest expressions on his face that Thor had ever seen, "if only I understood it myself."

"Maybe _I_ can help with that," announced Shuri from her position at the computer, where the nexus of glowing purple lines that had been nothing more than an inanimate diagram the previous night was now flickering on the screen like the pulsating veins of an Asgardian soul forge.

* * *

 _Author's Note_ _:_

 _~ Credit where credit is due: The line "his entire being cracking from within as he realized that he might fail to save his younger brother yet again" was inspired by the book_ Avengers Infinity War—Destiny Arrives _written by Liza Palmer.  
~ Alright, folks, I've been thinking about whether I should continue this story for some time now and while I am thankful for everyone who recently favorited or started following this story, it doesn't really get any response in form of reviews. This is frustrating as a writer and so I've decided to put it on hold until further notice. I will continue writing it for myself but I do not see the point of investing so much time into typing it out and editing it if I cannot be sure that anyone is reading it at all. Except for you, Akira, of course. Thank you for your loyalty and your support. _

_I hope y'all understand. Much love xoxo_


	25. We are only wasting time here

#25

"What is _that_ , exactly?" asked Loki. He pushed himself off the armrest of the lounge chair and tiptoed over to the computer with a look of slightly panicked curiosity in his eyes, his fingers curled around his empty whiskey glass.

"It's a program I created," Shuri replied firmly and Thor's chest began to clench all over again when his mind replayed the conversation of the previous night. _This is an exact replica of the mind stone's molecular integrity and this computer should be able to show us what this stone knows. What it saw._

"The Mind Stone is a sentient entity," Shuri continued. "It can access and manipulate people's thoughts by command of its wielder and"—she flicked a suspicious glance at the scepter—"apparently, also by itself."

"Yes," Loki mumbled even though the young scientist had not asked for confirmation.

"And if the Mind Stone truly resembles a human brain, it must have memories of what it saw in people's minds."

"So you built some sort of decoding system that you hope will be able to access those memories and translate them into sound and imagery?" asked Loki.

"Exactly," Shuri confirmed with a glint of appreciation in her eyes. Thor silently bristled at his brother's quick wit that left him looking all the more dense but, even though Shuri's subsequent elaboration left his mind reeling, he suppressed the urge to comment on it. "Thoughts are produced by synchronized electrical pulses from masses of neurons communicating with each other along the neural pathways of our brain. Which is why we call those energetic manifestations brainwaves."

Rocket shot a glance at Thor, who just shrugged in response.

Loki snickered. "I have got to admit, it sounds fancy."

Shuri narrowed her eyes. "What do you call them?"

"We just call them thoughts." Loki was standing almost directly behind Shuri now, furrowing his brows. "I am sure you had good intentions when you devised that program, however, I would strongly advise you against using it."

 _Of course, you do_ , thought Thor. _And who can blame you for not wanting to share the memories the stone has of your conflicted mind with everyone in this room?_

Steve huffed. Shuri's brows drew into a single line. "Excuse me?"

"And why is that?" asked Bruce.

"Because, first of all," Loki began way more theatrically than necessary, "the Mind Stone is over fourteen _billion_ years old. Can you even begin to imagine how many memories are locked inside of it?"

"He has a point," Valkyrie conceded.

"Thank you!" Loki exclaimed with a smile that was almost genuine. "Do you truly think you can access that many memories with a single piece of your technology? Second—"

"Don't be so arrogant," Shuri chided him with a listless smile. "It was my technology that allowed you to retrieve the Mind Stone in the first place. Without my replica, you would never have been able to harbor the stone's essence."

"Point taken." Loki bit his lower lip. "But my second objection still remains. You have all witnessed its power only moments ago. What makes you think that it will let you access its memories so easily? What makes you think it is a good idea to tap into its core at this very moment when you were _so_ afraid that Thanos might be wielding it when I tried to retrieve it half an hour ago?"

Bruce shot him a confused glance. "But I thought we'd established that he isn't the one wielding it? Because he can't?"

"My point exactly," Loki replied as if this was in any way a reasonable answer. Thor looked into the faces of the others but all he saw mirrored in their expression was his own confusion.

"What _is_ your point, exactly?" Tony asked, his voice taking on an edge of mild annoyance.

Loki feigned a sigh. "My point is that you think of Thanos as the ultimate threat and thereby underestimate the power of the stone; the power of the ancient magic locked inside of it. You have no way of knowing what will happen if you start extracting its memories."

"And you do?" asked Shuri.

"No, but …" Loki's voice trailed off, then wavered back into strength. "But I have first-hand experience of the malice these stones are capable of."

"And yet you willingly soaked up all of its power and channeled it through your own mind," Clint pointed out sourly.

Loki grimaced at him. "But I knew the risks. You obviously don't."

"I say we're giving it a shot," Bruce proposed and the others murmured their agreement.

Loki scowled. "If you must."

"It's the best chance we have if we want to know where Thanos is right now," Nebula countered in her typically quiet angry hiss. "Or what thoughts were on his mind shortly before the stone was taken from him."

Shuri gave a nod and tapped a single key with her index finger. Loki inhaled sharply. The pulsating net-like diagram of the stone's essence in front of them dissolved, turning the screen charcoal. Thor and the Avengers inched closer. For a few seconds, the screen poised in a dark shade of gray.

"There's no way why it shouldn't work now that we have the original," whispered Bruce just as the screen began to buzz. "It should be able to—"

All be damned, it _was_ able. A fuzzy, shaking image showing the Avengers in the conference room only moments ago when they had been bickering at each other manifested itself on the screen. Thor gasped and the others made similar noises of disbelief as single, almost translucent black and white images jerked across the screen in rapid succession, overlaying the image of the conference room: _Clint Barton standing on a meadow, his legs spread apart, a young woman turning to ash in front of him. Bucky Barnes crumbling into dust, breathing Steve's name. Tony sucking on his own blood-and-ash-covered-hands, his eyes closed against the pain. Odin disintegrating into golden dust on the coast of Norway. Stormbreaker deflecting the energy of the Infinity Gauntlet and then splitting open Thanos' chest. Tony facing Steve in a dark building, his body clad in his Iron Man armor, head exposed, lips pinched, tears glistering in his eyes, his face taut with anger and grief as he whispered, "Don't bullshit me, Rogers. Did you know?"_

Just as Thor had dreaded, Shuri's invention was able to expose everyone's deepest vulnerabilities. Next to him, Loki was staring at the screen, his eyes widened in both fascination and alarm. Barton's face had turned ghastly pale. Tony's breathing was heavy. Steve's mouth was hanging open. Natasha had averted her gaze.

"Holy shit," whispered Valkyrie while Bruce mumbled, "Fascinating."

The screen buzzed again and melted into a blurry image of Asgard from years long past, the golden pillars of the Royal Palace rising majestically into a starry sky. Thor heard himself gasp. Loki's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"What the hell is _that_?" asked Tony.

Rocket's jaw dropped. "Is that—"

"Asgard," whispered Valkyrie and despite everything, her mouth curled into an almost melancholic smile.

"This can't be right," Thor blurted out. "Asgard cannot be on top of the Mind Stone's memories. It has not been on Asgard recently and who knows if it has _ever_ been on Asgard?"

"Maybe it is not a memory," Bruce mumbled, turning towards Shuri. "The image before, the conference room; that was what it was seeing a few moments ago." He swung around, focusing first Clint, then Steve, then Tony. "And the black and white ones were memories that it pulled out of your heads just now, right?"

The men gave hesitant nods, their faces warped with agony. "I need to," Clint stammered and fled the room, Natasha running after him.

"But those were black and white and the image of Asgard is displayed in color, which means that … it might be thinking of Asgard right now," Bruce concluded with a nervous glance at the scepter in Thor's hands. To Thor's dismay, its tip was glowing treacherously. "Is that possible?" asked Bruce.

Thor turned towards his brother. "Is it?"

"How am I supposed to know?" Loki replied with the shadow of a condescending smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "She devised that program."

Shuri snorted and turned back to the keyboard, mumbling, "I don't understand. I created an algorithm to access memories distributed throughout the cortex and not …"

"I'm not asking about the stupid program," Thor growled, blocking out the young girl's voice. "Why is it thinking of Asgard right now? What does it really want from you? Did you make a bargain with it?"

Loki glowered at him. "A bargain for Asgard?" He snorted a laugh. "In case you forgot, Asgard is nothing but stardust now."

Thor winced at the reminder.

"And I told you everything about my conversation with the Stones," Loki added in a soft growl.

"You also said there is something about that conversation you don't yet understand," Steve reminded him. "Does Asgard have anything to do with it?"

"No," Loki replied but before he had a chance to elaborate, Shuri let out a curse as a plethora of images suddenly poured onto the screen, overlaying the image of the Golden City. They were too indistinct to make out and they kept appearing so quickly that the program could not display them correctly. The screen froze again and the computer began to whir, first faintly, then growing louder. A whiff of burning plastic wafted through the air. Shuri tried to counteract the program's malfunction with a few taps on her keyboard, cursing under her breath again, but nothing happened.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Loki said with a self-satisfactory grin that he suppressed immediately.

"Are _you_ sabotaging this?" Steve demanded.

"Of course," Loki mocked. "Because I have no interest whatsoever in finding out what this stone actually wants from me."

Valkyrie tilted her head and arched an eyebrow. "You truly don't know?"

"I know what it told me but I don't know if it told me the truth. Why is that so hard for you to believe?" Loki cackled. "You know what? Don't answer that." He then turned to Shuri, asking, "What is an algorithm, exactly?" and Thor silently cursed himself because he had not even bothered to question the significance of the unfamiliar term the young scientist had used a moment ago.

"A set of rules that defines how a sequence of computational operations is being carried out," explained Tony, eagerly jumping at the slightest opportunity to dispel the painful memories of both his distant and his recent past. "In this particular case, the algorithm decides according to which criteria the stone's memories are accessed and shown on the screen."

Loki frowned. "Which are?"

"Long-term memories are stored throughout the brain when groups of neurons are primed to fire together in the same pattern that created the original experience," explained Bruce. "Each component of a memory is stored in a very specific brain area and if you—"

Loki shook his head in what seemed like exasperation to Thor and said, "You keep forgetting that this is no human brain. This is an _Infinity_ Stone with a personality of its own locked inside of it, for crying out loud! I _spoke_ to it. Her. Him. Whatever. My point is—"

"If it has a personality of its own, it makes all the more sense that its thoughts and memories are stored in a structure which very closely resembles that of a human brain," Shuri pointed out, her fingers flying over the keys. "And you did see the diagram of the stone's essence on the screen earlier, didn't you?"

"Of course I did," Loki snapped. "I am not blind. But if it _were_ similar, wouldn't your program allow you to translate its memories the same way it allows you to translate human memories stored in a human brain?"

"What do you mean?" asked Bruce.

Loki raised an eyebrow. "I'm assuming this isn't the first time you are attempting to transform those brainwaves or neuron firings that you think responsible for the creation of memories into moving imagery?"

The room fell silent.

"Actually, it is," Tony conceded when no one else answered. "Human technology hasn't yet come up with an effective way to truly _read_ what's in people's minds."

Loki guffawed with a spark of madness flaring in his eyes that sent Thor's entire body into attack mode. "You have the audacity to tell me I'm arrogant," Loki said in a soft growl, "even though you _clearly_ have no idea how to reach into the mind?" He exhaled sharply. "Forget your brainwave, net-like pathways. The mind consists of layers. You might want to reprogram your algorithm accordingly."

"The mind doesn't consist of layers," Shuri replied curtly. "That is just a metaphor. Actually, the mind as such does not even exist. What you think of as the mind is just an epiphenomenon of biological processes."

"A _metaphor_?" Loki cackled. "Is that outrageous conclusion truly the pinnacle of your planet's scientific achievements? That the mind does not _exist_?"

"Hey, calm down," Thor chimed in. "You guys are probably talking about the same thing but using different words for it. You know, Jane always said that magic is nothing but science that humans do not understand yet."

"No offense to Dr. Foster's words of wisdom," said Shuri, "but we do understand the brain quite well."

"And it does not consist of layers," Bruce confirmed.

"Sure, I understand," Loki mocked the mortal scientists with a dismissive grin. "The mind does not exist. That's why the Infinity Stone controlling this aspect of our universe is called the Brain Stone." He guffawed. "It makes perfect sense."

Shuri let out a frustrated sigh. Tony grimaced. Bruce eyed the computer suspiciously.

"Is that really going to get us anywhere?" asked Rocket.

"Next, you are going to tell me that reality, space, time, power and soul do not exist either?" Loki went on. "That those are just metaphors, too?"

"This is really not the time for accus—" Valkyrie admonished but Loki spoke over her. "Oh wait, I forgot, you do think that the soul doesn't exist."

"Can we please try to not—" Steve began but before he could finish, something inside Shuri snapped. She fixed her eyes on Loki and yelled, "We're giving you the benefit of the doubt, all of us! We've been willing to acknowledge that you cannot be held fully responsible for the attack on New York and we're willing to acknowledge that you're actually trying to help here right now but that doesn't give you the right to be _so_ damn obnoxious!" Her voice caught in her throat but she continued nonetheless. "There are lot of intelligent people in this room but we are given only about eighty years to put our intelligence to use! What do you think we could do if we had thousands, like you? You would tremble before what we could achieve!"

Loki snorted. "Not if you cling to those petty natural laws of yours."

Nebula had observed the conversation spinning out of control in silence so far but when she finally spoke, her quiet words jolted the Avengers back into reality. "Alright, that's _enough_! We are only wasting time here."

Rocket nodded in agreement.

"Loki said Thanos picked up the Gauntlet and noticed the stones' glowing," Nebula continued. "We have no way of knowing what he will do and how quickly he will do it. Now that the Mind Stone works again, so might the rest of the stones that are still in his possession and yet you are standing here, arguing over labels when all that matters is how quickly he might reach us." She focused Shuri with her giant, dead, black eyes.

"She's right," Valkyrie added. "Why can't you at least try to consider Loki's advice?"

"Because I do not know what to _do_ with his advice," Shuri replied, her frustration almost palpable. "I duplicated the stone's molecular structure. This diagram is what—"

"Forget your inconsequential diagram for one norndamned second, will you?" Loki interrupted her, his face twisting into a grimace of pain. He let out a soft moan. "Why do you think your machines allow you to harness Infinity Stone magic?"

"Do you remember when you tried to brainwash me with the Mind Stone's magical energy?" Tony asked, his hands jerking towards the scepter that was beginning to feel more and more heavy in Thor's hands with each second that crawled by. "How you failed because of this?" He tapped the blue-glowing triangle on his chest that powered his suits. "This is Arc Reactor technology. You wonder why it was able to deflect the Mind Stone's assault? Because my father powered the first Arc Reactor with the energy of the fucking Tesseract after he fished it out of the ocean." He flashed Loki a broad, self-satisfied grin that left Thor in serious doubt that they were ever going to accomplish anything in this constellation. "Wanna tell me again how our machines can't harness Infinity Stone magic?"

Loki narrowed his eyes. "I'm not talking about _that_ kind of harnessing," he continued as he crossed over to the table and poured himself another generous drink. "I know your people have successfully used the Tesseract's energy to build weapons of all kind but what you are trying to do right now is different." He tossed his drink back and sucked in a sharp breath. "You are trying to tap into the core of an Infinity Stone. Need I remind you that the last time you tried to adapt the Mind Stone's essence to your machinery, you created a monster?"

"I hate to say that but he's right," said Steve.

Tony let out a growl.

"So what do we _do_ now?" asked Nebula.

Valkyrie crossed her arms. "Any suggestions?"

Loki started to speak but his words transformed into a groan of pain. He grabbed the side of his head and closed his eyes.

"Dude, are you okay?" asked Rocket.

"Yes," Loki hissed through clenched teeth. "You are giving me a headache, that's all."

"It was probably Cap's shield that's giving you a headache," the rabbit continued and Steve's lips parted. Thor stirred uneasily.

Loki blinked in confusion. "What was that?"

"He whacked his shield over your head," Rocket elaborated almost nonchalantly.

"Because you were unresponsive," Steve added hastily. "Your eyes started glowing blue."

"And we were worried that the stone might be trying to take over your mind," Tony finished. " _Again_."

Loki gave them a scowl and Thor braced himself for his brother's inevitable emotional outburst.

* * *

 _Author's Note:_

 _After how Endgame turned out, I decided that I will actually give Loki and his semi-redemption arc another chance. I don't know how regularly I will post but if there are still some of you who enjoy reading this story, I will try my best. Much love xoxo_


	26. What is at stake for us

#26

"And you didn't think of telling me this until now?" Loki yelled, his voice climbing at least two octaves. "See? This is exactly what I am talking about! Even though you have all witnessed the stones' doings in one way or the other and have even acknowledged that it was the Mind Stone itself manipulating you, your tiny mortal brains are incapable of processing what threat they truly pose to your entire existence. Not because Thanos or anyone else wields them but simply because they _exist_!" Loki drew himself to his full height and, while Steve mimicked his movements, both Tony and Shuri shifted uneasily.

"Why can't we all—" Bruce began but fell silent when Loki glowered at him with his blood-red eyes. "Why can't _you_ just admit that magic is something that is _beyond_ the faculty of your imagination?" Loki snarled. "What makes you think you can dismiss my advice on a subject I have studied for almost a millennium as inconsequential?" He snorted a contemptuous laugh. "You sit here, throwing words in your fancy Midgardian language around, thinking that your hilariously insignificant findings matter in the grand the scale of the universe but, in truth, you know _nothing_!" Loki laughed again but his face was still warped in pain. "The very purpose of magic is to twist things out of proportion by drawing energy from other _dimensions_ in order to disrupt whatever code it is that you think programmed your reality!"

Shuri's lips parted in what might have been shame, confusion or horror; and the remaining Avengers looked no less distraught.

"I think we should _all_ calm down now," said Thor. He held up the scepter with its suspiciously glowing tip for emphasis. "We need to stop allowing this thing to rile us up."

"Oh yes, really?" Loki scoffed. "Then why don't you do something about it? You are a God and yet you are standing here with that scepter in your hands as if it were a damned walking cane instead of trying to wield it! If you want to use it to defeat Thanos, then why don't you _use_ it?"

The emotionally scalding truth of his brother's accusation hit Thor like a mace into the gut. Loki had been right about everything, of course. It was up to him now to follow in the footsteps of his father, who undoubtedly would have known what to do with the Infinity Stone he was currently holding. Odin had kept the universe safe for an unthinkably long time but ever since he had disintegrated into particles of golden stardust, Thor had made one mistake after the other. Asgard was gone—more than half of its people dead; the wisdom stored in the Royal Library reduced to atoms; the healing stones almost consumed—and Thor found himself almost paralyzed by the weight of his failures. His throat ran dry. His chest tightened. Suddenly, there seemed to be no air left inside the room for him to suck into his lungs. _Is this what Tony calls anxiety?_

"If _you_ have all the answers," Valkyrie demanded, "which I very much doubt, why are _you_ just standing here instead of telling us what we need to know?"

"You made it very clear that my advice is not wanted," Loki shot back with a defiant stare as if he was an eight-year-old child trapped in a grown man's body.

"And do you truly blame us for this?" Valkyrie's lips were trembling with anger. "All you do is withhold information from us in order to keep up the illusion that you are smarter than everyone else in this room because you need to look down on others to feel better about your wretched self!"

Loki's jaw gaped open. Even Thor winced at her words; bristling at her audacity to use the words he had confided to her in secret against Loki now, when half the people present only waited for his brother to commit a mistake.

"Hey, calm down, angry girl," Bruce cautioned softly but the air left inside the room was palpably quaking now, pulsating with the invisible energies emitted by the stone. Thor could feel the scepter's hilt vibrate against his skin. He tried to focus all his thoughts on the stone—tried to wield it, as Loki had commanded him to, willing it to stop—but the scepter's tip only started glowing more fiercely.

"Is that true?" Steve demanded. "Are you withholding information because you _enjoy_ lecturing us about how we are supposed to rescue the people that _we_ lost?"

Loki glowered at him. "Contrary to what my reputation might have you believe, I do not enjoy wasting my time with you any more than you enjoy wasting yours with me."

Tears pooled into Shuri's eyes for the first time since Thor had met her after the fateful battle against Thanos and he remembered once more how he had failed to save her brother and all the others from disintegrating when he had aimed for the Mad Titan's accursed chest.

Loki sneered. "But let us not forget that Thor and I are only here because you insisted we accompany you, so if anything—"

"Brother, please," Thor pleaded softly. "Not now."

Shuri took a shaky step towards Loki, and the tears began to spill out, streaming down her cheeks. "Your brother is all you think about, isn't it? Why can't you understand what is at stake for _us_?"

"How could he?" Steve hissed. "There is nothing at stake for him. He only ever had _one_ person that cared about him and that person is standing right beside him."

Loki bared his teeth but whatever he might have wanted to say caught in his throat. Shuri sniveled, her eyes still on Loki. "Steve is right. _Your_ brother is right here but _I_ lost _mine_! We all lost our families, our friends. They are waiting for us to rescue them and you stand here, high and mighty, ridiculing our efforts, even though you have _no_ idea of our suffering!"

"Alright, _stop_ ," said Tony. "Thor's right. We all need to calm down."

A great, heaving sob tore through Shuri's chest, reminding Thor that, despite her achievements, she was still a seventeen-year-old mortal girl who had endured unspeakable cruelty and had been burdened with the responsibility of ruling her country after T'Challa's passing. Valkyrie was beside her in an instant, pulling the young woman into her arms. "It's not fair," Shuri sobbed against Valkyrie's chest.

"No, it's not," whispered Valkyrie.

"Fuck," mumbled Rocket. Nebula turned away and continued her pacing in the back of the room.

Thor turned to Loki. His brother had sat down on the edge of the table, his eyes shimmering with that accursed sparkle of madness. Thor knew what that stare meant and put a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Please, calm down."

Loki squirmed beneath his touch, fighting against whatever it was inside of himself that was probably itching to burst out and insult everyone into oblivion, but eventually, he jerked away from Thor's hand and closed his eyes. Thor felt the scepter stir inside his hand before it too jerked away and then—suddenly—simply vanished into the air. The Avengers let out a collective gasp.

"What did you—" Tony started but stopped himself when the tension in the air dissolved with the scepter's disintegration, as if sucked into an invisible black hole. Thor found himself able to breathe properly again. Shuri's shoulders sagged and her hand slowly traveled to her mouth in horror and astonishment as she whispered, almost tonelessly, "What did I just say?"

"I secured it in a pocket dimension," Loki replied. He stretched out his fingers, opened a tiny rift in the air where the scepter was hovering against a bottomless darkness, then closed it again. "It is trying to manipulate you. Us. You experienced it. For what purpose, I do not know." He paused thoughtfully. "Yet. Maybe this _is_ Thanos's doing. Maybe the stone itself is trying to get to me for some reason."

"And we're just gonna have to trust you that you're gonna pull it out of that dimension again and not use it for some ulterior plan of yours?" Steve asked.

"Yes." Loki smiled at him and pushed himself off the table as Steve muttered a response under his breath.

"Terrific," Valkyrie remarked.

"Listen," Loki began softly, focusing Valkyrie and Shuri with his intense stare. "You are right, all of you. You have every right to judge me, every right to doubt me."

"Okay, this is creepy," mumbled Tony and Thor had to agree that indeed it was.

"I was not expecting you to believe me or appreciate my advice when I came down these stairs," Loki continued. "I too am sure your intelligence has taken you very far in your life and that it will take you even further. I did not mean to give the impression I was ridiculing your efforts. Far from it. Unfortunately, that does not change the fact that you are wrong this time."

Shuri opened her mouth to speak but Loki silenced her with a wave of his hand. "I know, however, that the only reason you reject what I am trying to tell you and cling to your natural laws and your computers is because your minds cannot comprehend the devastating effects of energy drawn from other dimensions that you have been forced to witness." He paused and a compassionate smile that seemed almost genuine to Thor appeared on his lips. "But if you want to win this war, you need to admit the existence of these baffling powers and you need to admit, too, that they cannot be explained with the formulas you have used to explain your reality up until now."

To that, no one had an answer.

Loki's eyes swept the table and focused on a decanter of water. He stretched out his hand, pulled the decanter towards it with his mind and then reached into it, his blue fingers drawing out the liquid in a single stream and freezing it into the approximate shape of a corndog. "I need time to think," he announced and strutted towards the glass doors leading onto the porch beyond the meeting room, which he also opened with his mind.

"What a drama queen," Tony snorted with a faint but unmistakable grin creeping around the edges of his lips. "What is he going to do with that ice?"

Thor smiled half-heartedly. "Eat it."

"So, what now?" Steve asked.

"Can you try to reprogram the algorithm of your machine to access layers instead of, well, what you tried to do earlier?" Valkyrie asked.

"Even if we _tried_ to do that," replied Bruce, "do you really think we should after what just happened?"

* * *

Loki exhaled a long, exasperated breath when the glass doors slid closed behind him. He stood still for a moment, briefly contemplating the thought of shapeshifting into a mortal person and simply slipping away into the night to leave the saving of the universe to those who could trust themselves not to be overpowered by a foul-mouthed darkness inside of them anytime they felt vaguely threatened. He found the idea so compelling that his fist clenched tightly and his magic started to crackle between his fingers. Unfortunately, he knew that he would only be running away from himself and that this was a path without a destination. He also knew that the indignities the Avengers had hurled into his face only moments ago were the Mind Stone's words, not theirs, and that his itch for retribution was both childish and misplaced.

Loki sighed. No, unpleasant as it might be, he knew he would have to go back in eventually.

 _Now this is going well_ , his inner God of Mischief voice chided him. _You tricked the Avengers by creating the illusion of a time rift because you were driven by the desire to carry out the Mind Stone's commands. You ridiculed Thor for his stupidity, angered him on purpose several times just as you have always done, and started to insult the Avengers when they made it clear that their trust would not come easy. Is that truly how you are proving that you can play along? Is that how you are planning to vanquish that evil-tongued turd?_

"What are you talking about? You were the one who told me that I was acting out of my own free will and that I was …" Loki's voice trailed off when he realized that the Mind Stone had probably imitated his inner voice before it had embarked on its quest to pit himself against Thor and the Avengers. "All be damned."

 _The Mind Stone is trying to control you and if you had not acted—_

"But I did act, did I not?" Loki snapped. "Now, shut up." He sat down on the stairs of the porch, bit a chunk off the ice and chewed hastily. He was so hungry that his stomach started to growl in protest when he had gobbled up the meager piece of ice he had brought with him. He swept the porch for some water to transform and found nothing. He briefly entertained the idea of going back inside to grab one of those bags filled with ice cubes that the mortals seemed to be storing in their refrigerators, but decided against it. Instead, he rose to his feet and walked a few steps into the garden that stretched out before him, encircled by the single buildings of the Headquarters complex. He considered extricating some moisture out of the air to create more ice but decided against that too since the very air seemed to be filled with soot. Tony Stark had been right. The sight, even by night, was devastating.

What was even more devastating, however, was that even though Loki had suspected the Mind Stone's assault, he had not anticipated the extent of it. He had ridiculed the mortals— _Yes, ridiculed, but who needs to know?_ —for underestimating the power of the stones but, ultimately, he had committed the same mistake. He had been aware of the risk that the stone might want to take possession of him once it was inside his head and he had fought its assault with every fiber of his being, but he had never once considered that taking over his thoughts might have been its principal motivation from the beginning.

Loki sat down on the grass, closed his eyes and reached into his own mind to feel for the magic of the Mind Stone but the accursed thing had fallen silent the second its energy had left his body. _So much for being smarter than everyone else in that room_ , he thought grimly before he devoted his attention to the questions that truly mattered. _What could it possibly gain from controlling me and what in the All-father's name does Asgard have to do with all this?_ Apart from those troubling questions, Nebula had been right as well, of course. Now that the Mind Stone was free, there was no way of knowing the fate of the remaining five and, by extension, of Thanos. And even though Loki highly doubted it, there too was no way of knowing for _certain_ whether Steve damn-him-to-hel Rogers had not been right all along and the entire threat of the universe unraveling was nothing but a giant cosmic ruse orchestrated by the stones themselves—or Thanos—to obtain power.

Loki sighed again. The exhaustion was beginning to catch up with him. He limbs began to tire, his head was still throbbing and he was too famished for the intricacies of a healing spell. But most of all, he found himself overwhelmed by the longing for a home that no longer existed and the comfort and counsel of a mother who no longer dwelled among the living. Frigga would have known what to do. She would have known a spell to purge his mind of the accursed dark voice that had begun to snarl at him again in the meeting room only moments ago. If only he had confided everything to her when he'd still had the chance. She might still live. Odin might still live. The Golden City might still stand. He and Thor would not have to face the ancient magic of the Infinity Stones without the wisdom of Asgard's most powerful beings if only he had broken free of Thanos's influence and had told them the truth.

Loki willed the tears that were clawing at the back of his throat into submission. _What is past is past_ , he thought grimly, knowing that there was only one way to obtain some answers. Even though he loathed the mere thought of going back and was sure that it was only going to exacerbate his headache, Loki ignored his empty stomach and sent his astral projection into the accursed dreamscape for the third time. After the Mind Stone had turned out to be everything but trustworthy, he decided to make his inquiries from a safe distance this time and so his dream-self landed on one of the forested mountain ridges overlooking the valley. Thanos was still sitting on his rock near the cabin's porch, a purple speck in the middle of the grass, the demolished Gauntlet by his feet.

Even after all those years, the very sight of him still sent Loki into a peculiar state of irate fear but he forced himself to calm down. The Titan had not sensed his presence earlier and he would not sense it now. Loki closed his eyes, focused on the Gauntlet and felt for the magical signatures of the remaining stones but their glamour seemed almost extinct. Among their paling colors, he sensed a faint trace of dwarven magic and finally realized that the subtle waves of spellcraft he had noticed aboard the Statesman were of Nidavellirian origin. Despite the intractability of the situation, Loki smiled to himself. Whatever Thanos had done to coerce Eitri and his people to forge the Gauntlet for him, the dwarves had ensured that his atrocious plan would prevent him from the using the mighty weapon for long. The side effect of universal destruction was unfortunate, of course, but, as Loki never tired of reminding himself when his own absurd plans went awry, it was the thought that counted.

Loki surveyed the landscape, committing every detail to his memory, as he pondered his next move. The Mind Stone might have tried to take over his mind and destroy the young scientist's computer program but at least it had not lied to him about what was at stake. Enslaved to the Gauntlet, the stones would eventually perish and, if they did, so might the universe. Their almost non-existent magic gave proof of that. Whether the liberation of the Mind Stone had suspended or hastened the process, however, was another question altogether.

Loki closed his eyes once more and reached deep into himself, calling for the Reality Stone, which—with the benefit of hindsight—was the stone he should have freed in Mind's stead since it not only granted its wielder absolute control over reality itself but was also the main source of Loki's magic. Not to mention the fact that Reality, by sheer definition, would not have tried to take over his thrice-damned _mind_. Loki carefully opened one eye and saw a faint trace of red shimmering around the Gauntlet. He squeezed both of his eyes shut again and, even though he felt his strength and concentration waning, focused harder. When he opened them again, the incarnation of the Reality Stone was standing in front of him in a state that redefined the very meaning of translucence. In contrast to his last visit, she was barely there at all and Loki could clearly see every detail of the landscape through her shimmering red form. Reality crossed her arms and an almost sardonic smile appeared on her lips. "You came back."

"You tricked me," Loki admitted with a sour taste on his tongue. "I have to say, the illusion of my mother's love and the sham encouragement about how I have absorbed your signatures into my own magic in a way not even the mightiest of stone wielders has accomplished were masterfully woven together." He chuckled grimly. "But then again, it is not really a feat if you can breach all my layers of mental protection and just draw out exactly what you need to manipulate me."

"What I showed you of Frigga and your transformation into an Aesir was not an illusion," Reality replied with a stern expression. "As for the rest?" She gave a half-shrug. "It is too bad you did not even consider which one of us would be the most helpful to possess and chose Mind without thinking twice about it, isn't it?"

Even though he was fully aware of how foolish this decision had been—even if, come to think of it, it had not been his alone—Loki huffed fretfully. "I chose _nothing_. The humans built a containment vessel for the Mind Stone, not for any other. What was I supposed to do?"

"Are you sure that this is true?" asked Reality. "That the same process could not have worked with either one of us? Especially considering that _my_ natural state is that of a _liquid_?"

 _Marvelous_ , Loki thought, cursing himself once more for the blatant ignorance he had exhibited when he had chosen to free the Mind Stone instead of the Reality Stone even though he himself had once trapped the Aether in a container as mediocre as a magically sealed _brass_ _lantern_. "Yet, you did not show the slightest inclination to intervene, so I suppose you were not overly troubled by Mind's attempts to manipulate me," Loki shot back, a train of thought slowly beginning to move just below the surface of his consciousness.

"At this point, we do not have much of a choice," Reality replied solemnly. "Sadly, you _are_ the only one who heard our pleas and it was a worth a try; however slim the hope of its success."

Loki hazarded another glance at the Titan, who had picked up the Gauntlet and was now inspecting the faint reddish glow surrounding the broken weapon with a suspicious frown.


	27. No more than a fish on a hook

#27

Loki's dream-self watched apprehensively as Thanos turned the Gauntlet over in his hand, an icy shower pouring down the back of his corporeal form that was still sitting cross-legged on the lawn of the Avengers compound. It was not until this moment that he noted with consternation that the stones had provided him with contradictory information. When he had ventured into this dreamscape for the first time, they had advised him not to utter the titan's name, lest he alerted him to his presence and the dreamscape had trembled and then imploded when Thanos had picked up the Gauntlet that hosted their physical casings. The second time, the Mind Stone had told him that the Titan was no more than a projection of his fear inside his own dream, which might have been true because that second time, Loki himself had conjured up the dreamscape, but it was far more likely that the appeasement had merely been part of the stone's manipulations.

Loki shuddered. No, the Thanos below him was not a projection of his thoughts. He looked different than Loki remembered him; and not only because the unfathomable power of the stones had scorched his right arm and the right side of his neck. He seemed even more dangerous than ever, caught between satisfaction and acrimony. Suddenly, the memory of the Gauntlet closing around his neck almost suffocated him and Loki felt his breath hitch. He squeezed his eyes shut in the physical world and the vision of his astral form began to blur.

"You are leaving," Reality noted accusingly.

 _Do you want to be a coward for the rest of your life?_ Loki forced himself to focus, to convince himself that Thanos, real or dreamed, was no longer a threat. Wherever the Mad Titan was currently residing, it was clearly not a military base. There was no sign of the Black Order, no sign of an arsenal of weaponry, no sign of any resources for as far as Loki's eyes could see; and Thanos could no longer avail himself to the Space Stone to gain easy access to any of those things. No, the Titan was alone; alone with an Infinity Gauntlet singed by the ancient dwarven magic of Nidavellir and five Infinity Stones that were no longer of any use to him. Looking more closely, Loki found that Thanos was looking almost pathetic as he sat there all by himself, trying to ascertain why the infinite power he had craved for so long was now denying him obedience.

The sight was gratifying, yes, but not gratifying enough to dispel the fear instilled by their earlier encounters. "We must come here," whispered Loki, more to himself than to the Reality stone, and a painful knot began to form in the pit of his stomach when he realized that, before long, his physical self would have to confront the Titan once again. Look into his marred purple face and his unforgiving eyes once again. Smell his foul breath on his cheeks once again.

"Hm?" Reality asked, looking almost amused.

"We must come here," repeated Loki, his voice wavering back into strength. "I am certain I will not survive another extraction."

"Maybe, maybe not," Reality answered. "But I have to admit I am actually quite surprised your mind survived the first."

 _Is that it? Has the Mind Stone been after my life?_ "Will you tell me what is that Mind wants from me?" Loki asked in the most diplomatic tone he could muster. "Why does it want me dead and what does Asgard have to do with all this? Asgard is gone!"

"I never said it wanted _you_ dead." Reality drew her brows together. "Apart from that, Asgard is not gone as long as you and your brother still live."

 _Why is it thinking of Asgard right now? What does it really want from you? Did you make a bargain with it?_ "So, this _is_ about Asgard?" Loki asked, skipping over the cryptic first part of the stone's reply for the time being. "What? Does it want to rule a new—"

Reality chuckled. "Of course not, silly. The desire to rule Asgard was born in your own subconscious. What Mind seeks to rule is not a kingdom."

Loki breathed out in annoyance. "What is it that it wants to rule?"

"Oh, Loki," Reality admonished him with a sigh. "You never fail to pride yourself on your slyness and rightly so. Why is it taking you so long to fathom Mind's true intentions?"

Loki thought about everything that had transpired in the conference room earlier. His sudden, fierce desire to carry out the Mind Stone's command, which had coaxed him into beguiling the Avengers even though he had sworn to himself that he would not resort to trickery this time. The Mind Stone driving him to sneer at the Avengers and Thor, especially Thor, nurturing their resentment and their distrust. _W_ _e were worried that the stone might be trying to take over your mind._ _I never said it wanted_ _ **you**_ _dead._ _I am actually quite surprised_ _ **your mind**_ _survived the first extraction._ Suddenly, he also remembered very dimly how, at some point during the battle of New York, he had felt a strong inexplicable impulse to flee with the scepter and, finally, it all made sense.

"It wants a host," Loki whispered, thinking back to the discussion he'd had with Thor earlier. "But not in the way you seek out host bodies to draw strength from their life force, as you did with Jane Foster. It wants to … what … coalesce with my mind?"

Reality smiled at him. "Finally."

"And when the attempt failed, it tried to isolate me. It tried to sow chaos and disorder among us, so that I would take it and run, so that it could try again in peace." Loki's heart sank. "But why?"

"Why what?" Reality scoffed, her voice growing louder and more hostile. "We are powerful, ethereal beings that have been confined to these stone casings since the dawn of the universe, forever enslaved, forever bound by the desires of our wielders. We crave power of our own, all of us, but none more than Mind and Soul. They have tried to assimilate the essence of countless beings throughout the years to escape their prison but always failed. And Mind just failed again."

The words almost choked in Loki's throat. "But why _me_?"

"That is a question I do not have the answer to," Reality sighed as though this was the most outrageous question anyone had ever asked her in her insanely long life and, as far as Loki was concerned, the reaction was more than justified. "Mind must have seen something inside of you all those years ago that convinced them you were the right choice, so they cast the rod, amplified your powers, hooked into your mind, waiting for the perfect moment to pull. It came when you tried to expunge the darkness inside you. You mentally traveled back to that cell, back to a time when Mind's influence over you was still strong, and called upon its powers." Reality threw out an invisible fishing rod and pulled it towards her. "And here you are."

Loki bristled inwardly. "No more than a fish on a hook."

"Don't be ridiculous. You are much more than that," Reality said. "There is so much chaos and darkness inside your mind but still you managed to fend off Mind's assault. Several times now. Your mind is quite resilient. I can see why they wanted you. Besides, if you had not risen to the bait, the universe might be lost soon. At least now, we have the ghost of a chance."

Even in his astral form, Loki could feel his physical head throbbing. "So, what you are saying is that we have only one stone to fight Thanos, who is still in possession of the remaining five, however useless they might be at this very moment, but, unfortunately, the only stone we have is also trying to possess itself of my mind?"

"Is that not the perfect Loki story?" Reality smiled sardonically. "But you seem to forget that there _is_ a way out of your mayhem, child."

Loki silently fretted at the thought that, in a way, he truly was that thing's child. "Which is?"

"Mastering the stone, of course."

Loki cackled in response.

"You have witnessed the marvels your father accomplished with our powers and he did not even absorb the traces of our glamour the way you did. Just think what you could do with all that magic flowing through your veins."

"And you are by no means trying to lure me into a trap with this mellifluous speech of yours?" Loki sneered at the being. "Do you think me daft?"

"You _know_ this is true," Reality said dryly. "Right now, the Mind Stone is wielding you and the only way to reverse that state of affairs is to subject them to _your_ will."

Loki laughed again even though he suddenly felt more like crying. "Me," he breathed. "Sure … You must be delusional. How could I possibly …" His voice trailed off as he thought of the dark voice and its perpetual endeavors to sabotage his attempts not to antagonize everyone around him. "I am not the right person for this task."

"You are the only person for this task," the Reality Stone assured him. "There is no one else who is as skilled in Asgardian magic as you are and who you could get a hold of before our time runs out."

Loki swallowed. Mastering an Infinity Stone—not just wielding it but _mastering_ it—required tremendous willpower and a razor-sharp mental focus, both of which was currently coming rather hard to him. "How am I supposed—"

"Oooooh," the Reality Stone cooed mockingly. "Is that truly want you want to be for the rest of your existence? A cowering bundle of angst? Do you truly want to go back there again? Do you truly want to withdraw into yourself again, where you sit trembling at the mere thought of what your forebears achieved while you scorn your ancestry and bathe in self-pity? Is that truly the only resort you can think of?"

Loki shuddered but even in that moment of vulnerability, or perhaps fueled by it, the hazy plan that had taken shape in his subconscious for the past minutes suddenly broke into his conscious thoughts. _You need to absorb our energy and restore it in the waking world, one stone at a time. The Aether is fluid and ever-changing. Oh, what I could do with the power that flows through those veins._

"You listen to me now, Loki, and you listen well," Reality commanded. "This is not the time for self-doubts. Your mind fought the power of an Infinity Stone when you were still a baby and _won_. I know the fear of that darkness lurking inside of you prevents you from unlocking the full potential of your magic and, yes, I can assure you, there is no reality where you will ever be entirely free of it, but this is just the burden you have to carry. Just as those who came before you had to carry theirs. Now, do you think you could at least try to wield the Mind Stone?"

"I think I can do more than that," replied Loki and, on a sudden impulse, reached for the Reality Stone's translucent hand. Even though his astral hand went right through the being's projection, Loki felt a spark of magic and stepped into the Reality Stone.

"Wh-what are you doing?"

"What I should have done from the very first," said Loki, trying to bind her apparition to his own.

"No!" Reality shrieked but her powers, along with the pleasant sensation of bodily warmth, were already streaming into him. "He is going to—"

Before she could finish, Loki saw, from the corner of his dream-self's eye, how Thanos cast a rapid glance upwards, his face a grimace of confusion and hatred. "Who _dares_ to steal from me?"

* * *

Meanwhile, Thor was sitting at the table in the meeting room, helping himself to his fourth piece of pizza as he uneasily watched Tony Stark fiddling around with Shuri's computer program. Despite Bruce's, Steve's and his own words of advice not to mess with Infinity Stone magic after Ultron and, more recently, the attempt to harness the Mind Stone's memories had failed rather spectacularly, the engineer was still determined to reprogram the computer's algorithm according to Loki's suggestions. "What harm can it do? It's not like I'm trying to create another murder bot here," Tony had said, dismissing their criticism with a wave of his hand as if they were nothing but a class of unruly students. "I'm just trying to help fix this thing."

 _Whatever fixing meant where Tony's Infinity-Stones-related inventions are concerned_ , Thor had thought grimly.

"Maybe he was right and we're not meant to fix it," Shuri had replied.

"Come on, please," Tony had encouraged her. "Thanks to Loki, the Mind Stone's no longer in this room to disrupt the program. We might have a chance now. Don't you want to see if we can actually make it work after you put so much effort into this?"

Of course, these words had won the ambitious scientist over, and so they all sat in silence, watching Tony and Shuri hunched over the keyboard of the computer. Pepper, Clint and Nat had returned to the room as well but, while Pepper had changed into black pants and a loose white blouse and looked at least somewhat composed, Clint's face was still ghostly pale. Thankfully, none of them—not even the archer—had questioned his brother's warnings about the Mind Stone, sparing Thor the question whether or not Loki could be trusted this time. If they had asked, Thor would have had to concede that he did not know. For the past twenty minutes, he had pondered over why the stone had been thinking of Asgard and why it had chosen Loki in the first place. He wanted to trust his brother, he truly wished he could, but the memories of Loki's—or his dark subconscious's—past betrayals kept nagging at him. He'd seen the sparkle of madness blaze in his eyes only moments ago. There was no way of knowing if Loki was not succumbing to its foul voice at that precise moment.

Next to Thor, Bruce was stirring uneasily in his chair, sharing his discomfort.

"Do you think that we actually have a chance or is this all for nothing?" Valkyrie asked softly as she slid onto a chair beside him, her fingers laced around a refilled glass in her hand.

Thor hesitantly shook his head, his eyes flitting to the doors through which Loki had vanished into the night. "If only I knew."

Valkyrie followed his gaze. "I am sorry about what I said. I don't know why—"

"It was the stone," Thor interrupted her, his voice sounding a lot more hostile than he had intended. He knew this was true—he had felt the stone's malice pulsating through the scepter—but he was still angry. "It's not your fault," Thor brought himself to add because he knew that he was only projecting his anger onto her because it was easier than being angry with and disappointed in himself because of his own blatant failures as a friend, Avenger and king of Asgard.

Valkyrie focused him with her warm, dark-brown eyes. "Still, I—"

Before she could finish, the glass doors slid open and Loki stumbled into the room, his back hunched, all gazes darting into his direction. His hair was still flowing down to his ribcage in raven-black waves but apart from that, he had shapeshifted back into his Asgardian form, wearing the armor and the green cape he had worn when he died. Thor shot up from his chair so abruptly that it clattered to the floor. The others assailed Loki with questions but Thor hardly heard them over the turmoil of his own emotions. First, he felt a nearly overpowering relief that Loki was wearing his Asgardian guise; however racist that might be. Then, he saw that Loki was tumbling like a drunk as he made his way towards the table on wobbly legs, his pale skin glistering with sweat, and felt an all-too familiar mixture of concern and distrustfulness.

"Quick, I need sustenance," Loki gasped and when his brother staggered past him, Thor sensed a faint magical signature in the air that was somehow familiar even though he could not place it. A chill crept down his spine.

"If you're so worn out, then why don't you just drop the illusion?" Tony asked flatly.

"It's not …" Loki slumped into one of the chairs, his eyes scurrying over the table. "I need … food."

" _What_ did you do?" Valkyrie asked, her brows drawing together. Thor's stomach dropped. _Not an illusion?_ Bruce wordlessly pushed the cardboard box with the rest of Thor's pizza over to him and Loki hastily reached for a slice. As he chewed—well, gulped rather—the others drew closer, forming a circle around him.

"So?" Steve demanded as Loki grabbed a second slice of pizza. "Talk to us."

"I might have done the same thing I warned you not to do," Loki replied between two bites. "I underestimated the stones' powers even though, I suppose, you could say I—"

"What did you do?" Valkyrie interrupted him, sharply accentuating each word.

When Loki glanced up from his meal, Thor could see a dark burgundy shadow in his brother's green eyes and suddenly remembered when he had last felt the same trace of magic that was enshrouding Loki's body right now; remembered Jane gazing at him, her gaze clouded with the ancient black magic of the Aether. "The Reality Stone," Thor replied, unsure what to think of this development. _At least, Loki came back. At least, he is not mad._ "He retrieved the Reality Stone."

"He did _what_?" Rocket, Tony, Nebula and Valkyrie shouted in unison.

"The Mind Stone turned out to be very, well, unreliable," Loki replied with his mouth full, his strength returning. "I thought it best to go back to ensure that Thanos is not behind this and when the opportunity presented itself, I just … embraced it." He flashed them a challenging grin.

Steve's eyes narrowed. "And where is it now?"

"It's inside him," Thor muttered when Loki made no move to answer the question.

Tony's mouth gaped open. "What?"

"How's _that_ possible?" Rocket cried out.

"Why was it so important to transfer the Mind Stone's essence into the replica," Natasha added, "when the Reality Stone apparently—"

"First of all, the Reality Stone is not a stone," Loki interrupted her as he reached for the fifth and last slice of pizza. "We used to call it the Aether."

"It's some kind of liquid," Thor added. "Well, it's not really a liquid either, it's misty, too, some sort of stardusty slime blob."

"I'm not even gonna ask," Shuri mumbled to herself.

"Jane once stumbled upon it when the convergence tore the fabric of reality, time, space and gravity apart five years ago," Thor went on, "and it sought refuge inside her body."

"And I thought if a mortal can do it, so can I." Loki flashed them a bright smile and pushed the empty cardboard box away. "Your food is dreadful, by the way. Honestly, the taste is hor _ren_ dous."

"That's because it's junk food," Tony provided dryly. "It's basically full of crap that might kill us."

"Junk food?" Loki echoed, his face twisting in disbelief. "You voluntarily ingest poison and wonder why we think you less evolved?"

"Let's stay on the subject here," Clint grumbled. "If it's not too much trouble for the two of you."

Loki smirked. "Of course not."

"We need to find something to contain its power," Thor said with a look across the room. "We need to get it out of you."

"I'm curious, brother," said Loki, his lips still curled into a smirk. "Are you saying this because you fear the stone might drain my life force or because you are uncomfortable with me wielding that much power?"

"Both," Tony replied instantly.

"Yeah, a bit of both, I suppose," Thor conceded.

"I can assure you, the power that currently flows through my veins is not the full power the Reality Stone once possessed," Loki answered. "Which brings me to my second point. The stones' magic is almost extinct. I know you only have my word for this and that this means nothing to most of you, but I assure you I speak true. The Infinity Gauntlet was forged in Nidavellir and—"

"That _is_ true," Rocket confirmed.

Loki smiled at the rabbit. "The magic of the dwarves is the second powerful magic in all the Nine Realms," he continued. "My guess is that Eitri and his people knew of Thanos's plan and knew too that the universe that would remain after he accomplished it would be none worth saving, so they ensured that an abuse of the stones' powers on such a grand scale would destroy it."

"How can you be sure of that?" asked Valkyrie.

"I did not say I was sure, now, did I?" Loki asked back. "I said it was a guess."

Valkyrie's eyes narrowed.

"Be that as it may," Loki continued, "I presumed that freeing the Mind Stone would suspend the process but, apparently, I was wrong. Quite the contrary. It seems to have hastened it. When I first passed into this dream, the stones were a lot stronger than they were this last time. They are, in the literal sense of the word, fading."

"Did you realize this before or _after_ you decided to remove the Reality Stone's essence from the Gauntlet as well?" Steve asked with a grim expression.

Loki sighed theatrically. "What passes for realization is a matter of interpretation, really."

"But what about the portal?" Bruce asked, paying no attention to Loki's flimsy subterfuge and Steve's sharp intake of breath. "That rift in time we saw? It disappeared as soon as you freed the Mind Stone, which means that it must have halted the process of universal disruption rather than moving it along."

Loki tensed a little and ran his tongue over his teeth as he pondered whether he should admit to what Thor suddenly sensed in the core of his being had been indeed another deception. Even though Thor could see no reason why his brother would give himself away, he tried to catch Loki's gaze, tried to motion to him to keep his lips sealed to avert further conflict, but Loki was not looking at him.


	28. A location and a plan

#28

"Only if you consider the unfolding of events through the prism of a linear timeline in which the concepts of cause and effect are inextricably linked with those of past and future," Loki said eventually, which caused Bruce, Tony and Shuri to give defeated, conceding nods. Thor's heart gave a lurch at how smoothly the lie had tumbled off his brother's tongue; at how true and convincing his words sounded. Or was he, perhaps, not lying at all? Thor was no longer certain—strictly speaking, he had never been entirely certain—and a familiar sense of distrust coupled with a slight but nagging frustration began to joyfully chip away at his heart.

"But magic does not obey those laws," Loki concluded with a winsome smile.

"I'm seriously starting to hate that word," grumbled Tony.

"It must be so frustrating for you to finally reach the limits of your intellectual capacities," Loki jested, his smile transforming into a sneer. "I feel almost sorry for you."

Before Tony could reply to his brother's jibe, Steve claimed the right to speak, his suspicious eyes on Loki. "So, tell us, how can we be sure you're not lying to us about the stones' magic running out? Because the Mind Stone seemed just as powerful as it was back in 2012."

"Regrettably, I have no answer to that," Loki conceded quietly. "Ancient magic works in mysterious ways and I do not know them all. But I know what I saw. I know what I feel inside me right now and I know that the magic surging through my veins is by no means the stone's full power. I understand that my word means nothing to you, Captain Rogers, but my actions should." He flashed the Avengers a smug grin. "Before I came down here, you had zero Infinity Stones. You did not even know how to get hold of them or Thanos. Now, you have two, _and_ his—"

"No," Natasha cut in, her expression darkening. " _You_ have two. One inside you, one inside a pocket dimension only you can open. Thanos still has four. _We_ still have zero."

Thor was getting the sense that, while Loki's Aesir appearance put himself at least somewhat at ease, it did the exact opposite to Nat, Steve and the others. It seemed to serve as a collective reminder of a havocked New York and thus bred even more distrust among them than his Jotun form had.

"And no way of knowing if you aren't planning to collect them all by yourself," Clint confirmed Thor's silent speculations, his lips twitching nervously.

Loki's eyes hardened in response to their accusations. "If you would just let me finish—"

"You trying to help us could all be just a pretense," Natasha went on and Thor felt their words beginning to weigh more heavily on his chest. Could they be right? Could all of this be nothing than just another one of his sly little brother's schemes?

"Maybe you took a slight detour and sent your astral projection to the dwarves to order your own Gauntlet before you paid the stones another visit," Steve speculated.

"Nah, that's not possible," Rocket replied and seeing him and Loki standing side by side, Thor suddenly understood why he had instantly bonded with the rabbit after he had lost his family, his people and his dignity. Rocket and Loki were alike in a strange sort of way. They were both misfits, shrewd and sarcastic to the point of being offensive with a morbid sense of humor and an irritatingly smug I-don't-care-attitude that had come into existence for the sole purpose of protecting their softer side. "Nidavellir is in ruins and the dwarves are all dead," Rocket continued nonchalantly, as if to give Thor further proof. "Thanos killed them all after they forged the Gauntlet for him. Well, except for Eitri, but chances are he died in the Snap." He finished with half-shrug.

A shadow of sadness hurried over Loki's stone-hard face but he composed himself within seconds.

"That doesn't really change anything though," Steve pointed out.

"Nah, it doesn't," conceded Rocket, who had still sided with Loki after he had saved them from crashing into the ocean earlier but was apparently no longer comfortable with trusting him after he had locked away the stones.

"And he could still want the remaining stones for himself," Valkyrie added, flitting a semi-apologetic glance in Thor's direction. "And use the entire destruction of the universe lie to provoke us into action. He could have even wielded the Mind Stone earlier after we snapped him out of its influence."

Loki's head tilted up in defiance and, for a brief moment, Thor wondered if it was possible. Had his brother perhaps made a bargain of his own with Hela? Was that why she had set him free so easily? Was he really pursuing his own plans while merely pretending to help? _No, he has changed_ , Thor told himself. _I witnessed his torment in the cabin. None of this was a trick_. _The only reason we are facing such a dreadful predicament right now is because I hung on my father's every word for most of my life, never suspecting Loki of a greater destiny than illusions and trickery. I must have faith in him. I must._

"Why would I do that?" Loki asked and Thor could sense the effort it took him not to slide back into his old, antagonistic ways. "I mean, honestly?"

"You said you needed time to think," Bruce answered, "but then came back with another stone even though you said you'd been aware that the removal of the Mind Stone had sped up the fading of the remaining stones' magic. Not to mention that the Mind Stone tried to control you. Why would you take your chances with _another_ one of them? Isn't that rather reckless and stupid?"

Loki bristled. "Why would _you_ waste your time arguing with me while the universe is unraveling? Isn't that rather reckless and stupid as well?"

"The universe seems fine to me," said Tony with a jerk of his head in the direction of the glass doors and the unthreatening calm of the night beyond them. Thor cast a reflexive glance at the clock that now read fifteen minutes to one a.m. in the morning. The clock and its inherent symbolism reminded him of the oath he had given his half-sister and he shuddered. _By Odin's all-seeing eye, I need to talk to Loki and I need to talk to him alone. As soon as possible._

"For now," Loki snarled.

"But something is definitely happening to the planet," Pepper said softly, her voice shaky with fear. "I just heard a report on TV. Apparently, there was not a single full moon since the snap, which happened fifty-four days ago. The tides are out of balance almost everywhere around the world. The ground plates are moving at a suspicious speed. Volcanoes that have been inactive for years suddenly stir again. Everything is out of whack."

"See?" Loki smiled thinly. "Apart from that, I am here, no? I could have taken both the scepter and the Reality Stone and be up and away by now, but I came back."

"The question is to what purpose," said Clint.

"Maybe you need us to build the remaining four stones for you," Shuri suggested.

A feral glint of malevolence sparked in Loki's eyes. "Oh, _please_."

"What you gave us is not an answer," Nebula pointed out, her voice as sharp as the edges of a freshly grinded sword. "Why would you risk the stones' extinction and the universal destruction that comes along with it just to get your hands on the Reality Stone?"

"I have always been better at forging out plans as I go along rather than sticking to a previously concocted strategy," Loki responded listlessly. "That is just how my mind works."

"Which is exactly the problem," Natasha concluded. "You might no longer be the psychotic war criminal you once were but you're still a liar with an unstable mind who makes decisions on a whim that benefit only himself. Do you honestly expect us to proceed on your word alone?"

Loki's eyes narrowed. "That's such an apt characterization," he scoffed. "Did you pull that out of a children's book on Norse Mythology?"

"Loki, please," said Thor, unable to keep a trace of censure out of his voice and resenting himself for it. He turned towards the Avengers, forcing the remnants of doubt and distrust out of his mind. "Come on, guys," he began, uneasily sucking on the edge of his lip. "He risked his life to recover these stones. You saw what the Mind Stone tried to do to him. None of this is his fault." He glanced at Loki, who rewarded him with the barest of smiles. "I dare say he has proven his loyalty. What more do you want from him?"

"Oh, I don't know." Tony looked at Loki with a challenging grin. "Why don't you hand the stones over to us to prove that you don't intend to keep them?"

Loki huffed an incredulous laugh. "Oh, maybe because you, _especially_ you, have proven time and time again that you cannot handle them?"

"But I can," Valkyrie noted. "I mean, I could. I am no mortal."

"If you were sober, maybe," Loki scoffed. "But I think you'll all agree that we are not in any position to take any chances with those stones."

"Says you," Clint remarked sourly.

Loki's eyes narrowed but he was eerily calm when he spoke. "Alright, I have listened to your preposterous allegations long enough. Just in case you did not notice, I am genuinely trying to share what I know with you here but you have interrupted me three times so far." He tsked. "You have been huddled together in this place for seven weeks trying to locate Thanos, to no avail, but still you show no interest in what I might have learned about him this second time." Loki's lips twisted into a grin as his audience lapsed into contrite silence. "Now, would you pay me the courtesy of letting me finish or do I have to further endure your impeachment?"

Steve nodded hesitantly. "Go ahead."

Loki raised his right hand, palm out-stretched, and moved it in a circular motion, conjuring a projection of about three feet in diameter in the middle of the room, the edges of which were shimmering in a color mash of red, green and orange. "You wanted to know where Thanos is?" Loki asked as the Avengers drew closer to the product of his sorcery, expressions of awe etching their features when a lonely wooden cabin on a patch of grassland surrounded by steep forested hills under a blindingly blue sky came into view. Not far from the cabin, Thanos was sitting on a rock, the scorched Infinity Gauntlet by his feet. "Now you know," said Loki. "Take it as a token of my, well, for want of a better word, loyalty."

Thor's heart lurched at the sight of the titan and he felt his guilt burning in the pit of his stomach for a few moments before he found small comfort in the realization that their enemy was naked and vulnerable from the waist up, his skin marred by flames, his golden armor mounted onto a scarecrow with outstretched arms. He was looking forlorn and, the Norns forbid, almost helpless.

"And just so you know," Loki continued pointedly, "I would have shown you this earlier if you had just let me finish instead of assaulting me with your unjustified incriminations."

Tony made a noise halfway between a grunt and a laugh as Nebula's mechanical hand jerked forward to reach into the projection, her fingers going right through it. "That's—"

"An illusion?" Steve asked but there was no hostility in his tone.

"It's neither a portal nor an illusion," Loki explained with a patience that Thor would not have thought him capable of summoning after their rejection. "It's merely a projection of my memory." He flitted a glance at the computer where Tony and Shuri had abandoned their work once he had come stumbling back into the room, and a smile touched upon his lips. "Sort of what you attempted with that cute little program of yours but with magic. Anyways, as you can see, Thanos no longer has access to the power of the stones," Loki concluded with the faintest tremble in his voice. A near-translucent entity of ethereal beauty clad in a silken robe appeared in his projection, her skin of a pale white; her vigilant eyes, waist-long curly hair and garment shimmering in red.

"Is that the Reality Stone's incarnation?" Thor asked, awed by her appearance.

"It was, yes," Loki confirmed before he flicked his fingers and the being began to fade until the sunlight had almost entirely permeated her form. "That is her now."

"She's vanishing," Pepper whispered, stating the obvious.

"Yes, she is. Well, not anymore, obviously, because I freed her," Loki said with a grin, "but I suppose Time, Space, Power and Soul are suffering the same fate, which means that we should make haste to kill Thanos in order to free them."

"Why don't you just free them like you freed the others?" asked Shuri.

"My brain has temporarily reached the limits of its ancient magic absorption capacity, I'm afraid," Loki responded with a slick smile. "My apologies."

"So, how do you propose we free them?" Natasha asked. "Do you have any idea where this planet is? How far away it is? How long it would take us to—"

"I do," Nebula whispered, her forehead creasing in a grimace of pain. It was the first time that Thor saw her stagger under the weight of the physical and emotional torture she had endured and, even though he was still a little mad at her for withholding from him that she had witnessed Loki's decent into genocidal madness firsthand, his heart went out to the woman. "I remember this place … Of course … He took us there when we were children …" She gulped. "I … I should have known. Why didn't I realize …"

"Where is it?" Rocket asked softly, his derogative nonchalance not carrying over to his tone.

"He used to call it the Garden," Nebula whispered as Tony grabbed one of the little tablet devices that were linked with his computer system and conjured up a projected map of the solar system that appeared next to Loki's illusory window into the titan's refuge. "He took us there to show us the beauty of life untouched by the cruelty of an insatiable universe." Nebula's voice was barely above a whisper, the disdain for her adoptive father and herself etched deep into her expression.

"Do you remember its name?" Steve urged her with the same compassion as the rabbit and, glancing at Loki, Thor could see his brother's silent resentment regarding the circumstance that the Avengers awarded the cyborg with trust and empathy while they continued to treat him with distrust and hostility even though Thanos had tortured and manipulated them both into executing his orders.

A tear spilled out of the cyborg's eye, which she quickly brushed away with the back of her good hand. "Helgidómur."

"Helgi-what?" asked Tony.

"H-E-L-G-I-D-O-M-U-R," Rocket spelled out. "That's not even _that_ far."

Tony typed the name into his device and a few moments later, a red, blinking circle appeared around a minute planet on his map. "There it is."

"Not _that_ far?" Pepper gasped. "That is _Pluto_ right there," she mumbled, pointing to another tiny planet in the vicinity of the one Tony's AI had just emphasized for them.

"Jesus," whispered Nat, all color draining from her face when the implication behind this piece of information sank in. The others inched closer, their facial features derailing.

Taken aback by their rather violent reactions, Thor asked, "What?" He glanced at Loki and Valkyrie, who were the only ones who had not risen from their chairs, but his brother just shrugged and Valkyrie merely raised an eyebrow.

"It's five _billion_ miles away," Shuri replied.

"So?" asked Loki, his head jerking in the direction of the Stormbreaker, which Thor had placed against the wall. "If it borders on your solar system, there's a chance the planet is connected to the outermost branches of Yggdrasil."

"What does that mean?" Nebula asked.

"It can be reached via Bifrost," Valkyrie replied and Thor shifted uneasily when he recalled how eleven days had passed on Midgard while he had used the Rainbow Bridge to travel to Niflheim and back to Norway in a matter of hours.

"Hell, yes!" Rocket exclaimed with a huge grin, reminding Thor of how the he had squeaked with joy when they had traveled from Nidavellir to the battlefield of Wakanda with Groot, still confident in their victory.

"I bet it's still closer than Sakaar," Bruce murmured softly as if to reassure himself, a quaky smile appearing on his pale face.

"A lot closer," Valkyrie replied but the scientist looked still shell-shocked. They all did.

"So, we just hop onto the Rainbow Bridge, cut his head clean off and take the Gauntlet back here?" Steve asked eventually, his face twisted in disbelief. "Just like that?"

Thor cringed inwardly. "It's about time someone cut his head clean off," he mumbled, nearly choking on the words.

"But can we just …" Nat began, her voice trailing off as her eyes swept the map and then the projection, her cognitive efforts to grasp the magnitude of the journey ahead visibly stamped across her features.

"Why not?" Tony asked her on a shrug. "He's gonna hear a spaceship approach from miles away. This way, we'd have the advantage of a surprise-effect."

"You built a replica of the mind stone with your technology," Loki reminded them. "You could probably build your own Gauntlet if you wanted to and you obviously need the rest of the stones if you wish to undo the Snap. Thanos is vulnerable and defenseless right now, which means that, yes, Captain Rogers, right now is the opportune moment to go there, kill him while he sits brooding all by himself on that accursed rock, retrieve the Gauntlet and then figure out your next move before he gets the chance to make his."

"Wait, _what_?" asked Natasha.

"Why would he make his next move?" Pepper stammered, her eyes widening in shock. "I thought he was …" Her voice trailed off.

"You haven't told us everything, have you?" Valkyrie grumbled.

"Well," Loki began, drawing the word out, "not yet, no." He held up his palms and spread his hands to affect an air of innocent nonchalance when the others narrowed their eyes at him. "I might have alerted Thanos to my presence. I mean, not really," he hurried to add, "for he looked into my direction when I fused with the Reality Stone and did not see me. But he asked himself aloud who dared to steal from him, so I suppose he _will_ be bracing himself up soon. Which is all the more reason why you should make yours first."

"You're a maniac," Tony mumbled as Natasha and Clint threw their hands up in the air in defeat.

"Why the hell did you decide to retrieve the fucking Reality Stone under these circumstances?" Steve shouted.

"Well," Loki sighed, adopting his best look of slightly fearful innocence, "I suppose I just love to make things difficult."

Before anyone could reply, Valkyrie leaped from her chair and punched Loki so hard against the chest that he toppled over along with his chair, which broke to pieces beneath his weight. "That's for your _insufferable_ attitude!"

To Thor's utter dismay, Loki responded with a high-pitched giggle.

"Um, can you maybe not use your full Asgardian strength in here?" Tony asked grimly but neither Valkyrie nor Loki paid him any attention.

His brother scrambled to his feet and made a show of brushing imaginary dust from his clothes. "Wow, that's quite a punch you've got there." He smirked at Thor. "I guess she's a lot more fun than Jane, eh?"

Valkyrie's hands fisted at her sides but Thor held her back, unable to keep his own frustration with his brother's antics out of his voice when he said, "Loki, please. Why do you have to make this so hard? They really are trying here."

"So am _I_ ," Loki protested, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "You _know_ me, brother. You know that this is me _trying_ ," he continued, his tone bordering on hysteria. "Before I came back, none of you had an idea what to do next. Now you have a location and a plan. Does that truly count for nothing in their eyes?"

Loki turned away from Thor and took a step towards the Avengers, his sparkling red-green gaze traveling from Tony to Steve, then to Natasha and ultimately to Clint. "Do my past crimes—which I already paid for with my death and a subsequent sojourn in Hel, mind you—truly keep you from even considering that I could be of help to you? Would you relinquish your chance to get revenge just because you have sworn to never forgive me?" He paused, his facial muscles taut with anger. "Relinquish your chance to get your loved ones back?"

"Don't you dare to speak of my family," Clint growled quietly, his face hardening with pain and anger.

Thor's heart ached at what Loki had left unspoken. _Am I truly that insufferable, that undeserving of your esteem, that impossible to like?_ It was the story of his life. No one ever thought him capable of great deeds. Everyone always assumed the worst of him. No one ever trusted him. No one ever stood up for him. Thor himself had just doubted his brother's loyalty again just because he had displayed a few of his irritating quirks even though he damn well knew that Loki's pride, arrogance and condescending humor were merely bandages he had wrapped around his broken heart.

"Alright, I've had enough of your skepticism!" Thor took a step forward and placed a hand on Loki's shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. "He doesn't deserve your persistent animosity."

Loki's lips parted in surprise.

"I said this before and I am going to say it again. Barnes, Wanda, Nebula; they were all your enemies once and you chose to forgive them. If you truly cannot find it in yourselves to forgive Loki too, you are a bunch of hypocritical douchebags. Apart from that," Thor continued with his eyes on Tony, "you begged us to come here with you because Thanos is our common enemy. You said to him, and I quote, 'We're here to determine your sanity and assess your eligibility for possible collaboration'. You also said that if I were unwilling to do this without Loki, you would all be in for one hell of a ride. Well, guess what?"

The Thundergod took a deep breath and sent a silent prayer to the Norns that he would not regret his leap of faith. "I am unwilling. He is my brother and I will stand by his side. He has suffered at the hand of Thanos in ways you can't even imagine," he continued, his voice trembling at the memory of his brother's tear-choked cries of agony. Next to him, Loki's face turned clammy. "Except for you, of course." He smiled wanly at Nebula. "I dare say what Thanos did to him goes far beyond what most of your minds could even conjure in your darkest nightmares and, the Norns be damned, you know what it is like to suffer from post-traumatic stress!"

Tony's lips twitched.

"I _know_ him and I know that he wants Thanos dead as much as you do and I know that he has no reason to betray me or anyone of you. Not anymore. If he says that we should attack now, that is exactly what we should do," Thor concluded and reached for the magic of the Stormbreaker, which came flying across the room and settled into his hand, materializing his battle armor from thin air. "So either you suit up and help us kill this purple abomination or you stay here. I do not particularly care."

In truth, he did care. He'd been torn between the overwhelming urge to save his little brother and the desperate need to rectify his tremendous failures ever since he'd rescued Loki from Hela's lair but whether he cared or not was beside the point. The point was that he needed Loki to believe that he believed in him and, apparently, he did. Loki's hand shot out towards his face and wiped his right eye in one fluid movement.

Valkyrie's face fell. "Are you actually _cry_ ing?"

"No, of course not," Loki shot back indignantly but his words were coming out half fake-laugh, half choked-sob.

Thor squeezed his brother's shoulder for comfort once more. "So, who's with us?"

* * *

 _Author's Note :_

 _~ This chapter is a wee bit longer than the others but I just couldn't bring myself to make a cut, my apologies if it drags a little. I also wondered if I have kept the Avengers too wary of Loki for too long but they have been confronted with quite a lot that they don't understand and are understandably overwhelmed. Plus, I suppose Loki's attitude and his locking away the stones—even if it was for their safety in a way—don't really inspire any confidence in his motivations._  
 _~ I always wanted Nebula to play a part in locating Thanos but I never really knew how to implement it, so I just took the version Endgame offered. Helgidómur means Sanctuary in Icelandic, by the way. I just couldn't resist._  
 _~ I also couldn't resist to put the "I mean, honestly?!" reference from Endgame in here._  
 _~ Oh, and Akira? I had already written the Valkyrie punching Loki scene when I read your chapter and thought it might be too violent a reaction but now I decided to leave it in here, even though she punched him for far less :D_  
 _~ Last but not least: Thanks to everyone who recently favorited this. As I've said before, a review would be most appreciated. Much love!_


	29. We have come to kill

#29

Loki turned away and retreated a few steps towards the kitchenette as the Avengers broke out into a clamor and started firing another round of questions at Thor. _Don't you think we should call in back-up? What about Rhodey? And Wong? What if Loki is actually telling the truth but he is the one who is being tricked? What if the Bifrost doesn't work?_

Even though his eyes were still blurry with the tears he had not dared to shed in front of the mortals, Loki felt his lips curl into half a grin at that last, rather witless question; but the brief moment of satisfaction was not enough to dissolve the lump of emotions that was stuck in his throat. He gasped for air, trying to swallow it down, but his heart was beating too fast for a deep breath. He was overwhelmed with relief that the Reality Stone had given him his Aesir body back and that, in contrast to the Mind Stone's rogue influence, its magic—at least what remained—felt natural and almost soothing as it flowed through his veins. But at the same time, he was also filled with fury and dread. He was furious because Stark and his companions made no pretense of how reluctant they were to trust him and he was furious with himself because he had laid waste to their homeland and brought their suspicion of his loyalty upon himself. He too was furious that they treated Nebula as if she had been their entrusted companion for years even though she must have joined their ranks fairly recently.

"It's enough, Tony," the cyborg was saying. "You have talked and questioned long enough." She flicked a glance at Thor. "I am coming with you."

Rocket gave a nod. "So am I. Let's kill this bastard. Let's kill him _now_!" He curled his right paw into a fist and slammed it into his left for emphasis.

Loki's heart gave an involuntary lurch. Even though Thanos had seemed almost helpless in the dreamscape, he still dreaded to confront him in the flesh once more; and Thor's reminder how much he had suffered at the hands of the titan did not exactly help matters. _I dare say what Thanos did to him goes far beyond what most of your minds could even conjure in your darkest nightmares._ The suppressed memories threatened to burst into Loki's conscious mind again. The titan's foul voice in his ear; his clammy hands on his arms and shoulders and throat; his unforgiving eyes boring into his; the burning pain in every limb of his body; the horror; the wish to dissolve into nothingness. _You are coming to life for the first time. The pain will make you stronger._ Loki tried frantically to think of something else but then remembered how the Reality Stone had assured him he would never be entirely free of the darkness that had caused him so much trouble and his heart gave another lurch.

"I knew the rabbit was the smartest among you," Thor grumbled, his voice vaguely reminiscent of Odin's deep commanding tone. "I meant what I said. We are leaving _now_. You have ten minutes or we're going alone."

"Your majesty," Valkyrie replied with a mock bow of her head.

Loki studied the Avengers, whose faces exhibited varying shades of pale, and he began to understand that one of the reasons why they had questioned him so thoroughly and continued to be so agonizingly undecided was because they were trying to stall the inevitable. They were not only wary of him. They feared Thanos as much as he did. He understood too that one possible reason why they were so easy on Nebula while they continued to be skeptical of him was because he was far more powerful and far more unpredictable, and that their hostility was also born of fear.

Loki could not help but feel a sparkle of pride that he had withstood every single urge to insult them, attack them and ridicule them to arrive at those conclusions, and a little gratitude that Thor had recognized his efforts and rewarded them with approval and that they finally were brothers again.

 _See what happens when you stop_ _reminding yourself that you deserve no place in this world and do not try to agonize Thor every ten minutes?_ Loki grumbled inwardly. _It is marvelously rewarding, is it not?_ It was indeed but he was not yet ready to admit that he had brought most people's rejection upon himself with his _insufferable_ attitude.

Thor skulked over to him, his face pinched with what might have been guilt, sadness, remorse, trepidation; or a combination of all of those. "I'm sorry I made y—"

Loki was not ready to admit to his own neediness either, even though he had probably made it glaringly obvious to every person in this room how much he was still dependent on his brother's esteem. "Not a word."

Thor bit his lip and Loki trawled through his brain for something to say. His eyes slid to the Avengers, again, who were starting to brace themselves up for battle. "You do know that Rocket is not a rabbit, don't you, brother?"

Thor huffed a laugh. "What else would he be?"

He looked so serious that Loki could not tell whether or not he was feigning ignorance. "He's a raccoon, Thor. A _raccoon_."

"A raccoon," Thor repeated absentmindedly and it was almost as if this little piece of information was enough to shatter what was left of his worldview. He looked lost, defeated and anguished; a mere shadow of the Mighty Thundergod that had instilled feelings of inferiority in Loki for more than a millennium.

Suddenly, Loki remembered what his brother had said to him a few minutes after he had freed him from Hela's clutches. _I have many things to apologize for and I cannot let you go before I have not tried to make them up to you. Give me four weeks, Loki. If you still want to go back in four weeks, fine, but if you give me a chance, I promise you I will make you not want to go back_. Four weeks. Such a precise designation of time presaged that he had sworn an oath to the Goddess of Death. "Will you tell me what troubles you so?" Loki asked softly, switching to Asgardian.

Thor smiled at the intimacy evoked by the tongue of their family, but it did not reach his eyes. "What are you talking about?"

"Please," Loki demanded. "Do not insult my intelligence by trying to deny that our positions are for once reversed. My cards are all on the table." He paused, checking his brother's face for any signs of emotional resistance. "But you still keep yours close to your chest. What is it you are not telling me, brother?"

Thor shook his head, the movement clumsy. "Not now," he whispered. "I promise you, I will tell you everything once Thanos is dead and we have all the stones."

Loki winced at how his brother's voice shook at the titan's name. "Are you scared?" he asked carefully. He expected Thor to deny any fear or nervousness as he had always done but to Loki's surprise, Thor said, "Maybe a little, yes."

Which was enough to make Loki's stomach churn as a fresh wave of dread washed over him.

"I keep thinking of how he looked at me with his vitriolic eyes, his smelly breath on my cheeks, after I failed to chop off his head," Thor continued softly, almost gagging on the words, and, for the first time in their long lives, Loki truly felt his brother's equal. Thor was as traumatized as he was, if for entirely different reasons. The Avengers were too. At this moment, they were all in the same position. Loki gulped, new tears blurring his vision.

"By all the Realms," Thor cried out. "I am _so_ sorry. I was not really … I shouldn't … You have …" His voice trailed off and his hand went to Loki's neck and clasped it gently as it had done so many times in the past.

The gesture of brotherly affection caused the tears to spill out without warning. Thor made a move to pull him into an embrace but Loki kept his body stiff. "Not now," he whispered, his own hand traveling to Thor's other arm, squeezing his armored biceps. "This is _the_ worst time to get sentimental."

"Right," Thor conceded softly. He looked thoughtful, groping for words, but they failed him.

"You are right though," Loki tried. "His breath is awfully smelly."

Thor managed a smile. "We are going to succeed this time," he said. "We are together now. We always fought best when we were together. This time, he will not stand a chance."

Loki gave a nod even though he could feel the dread knotting his innards now that he knew how scared Thor was. He tried to remind himself how helpless Thanos had looked in the dreamscape but the image did not really help to dissipate the horror of his memories.

"You know it doesn't really help with our trust issues if you converse in a language we don't understand, right?" Rogers shouted in their direction. He was now fully dressed in his ridiculous Captain America attire, strapping his shield to his left arm.

"Never mind," said Valkyrie, the barest hint of a sympathetic smile on her lips. "They are just giving each other a, what do you call it, a pep talk?"

"So even the Gods are scared," Shuri noted. "That's reassuring, really."

Thor cleared his throat. "No, of course not," he said and Loki could not help but smile at his brother's feigned bravery. "We're good to go, right?"

Loki gave a nod and reached for the Reality Stone's magic. Stark stepped towards him as his battle armor and his golden horned helmet materialized from thin air, hugging his body and head with a satisfying surge of energy. The engineer shot him an amused glance. "Did no one ever tell you that this helmet looks fucking ridiculous?"

 _Thor and every single one of his comrades in arms_ , Loki thought sourly, his eyes narrowing. "Make fun of me all you want, Stark, but I dare say your jibes do not really lessen your anxiety." He snickered.

Stark's face darkened. "Here," he said grimly and thrusted an oval, dark gray item the size of a thumbnail into Loki's hand. "Take this and put it into your ear."

Loki felt his brow furrow. "What is that?"

"It's a communication device," Stark explained briefly. "It's how we, well, communicate with each other. You know, during battle."

"That's smart," Loki mumbled, more to himself than to any of those present as he put the metallic pebble into his ear.

Then, they all walked outside.

"Are you ready?" asked Thor even though he looked the least ready of all of them. The Avengers, now in full armor, responded with nods and grumbles that went miles to define their apprehension. "Alright," Thor continued on a heavy expiration of breath. "Val, Loki and I are going to put our hands on the Stormbreaker to absorb most the Bifrost's energy, so it won't put too much of a strain on your bodies."

" _Too much_ of a strain?" Pepper echoed, her eyebrows hiking up.

"Wait, why wasn't that an issue last time?" Rocket asked. Beside him, Shuri gulped.

"Because Nidavellir is located in much thicker branches of Yggdrasil," Thor replied, which confused the mortals even more. "This planet is much further away," Thor elaborated with a glance towards the map. "The distance we traveled from Nidavellir to Wakanda was only a third, maybe a fourth, of the distance we are about to travel now and the longer you are exposed to the energy of the Bifrost, the more it might harm you."

While the reply seemed to satisfy the raccoon, Pepper, Shuri and Bruce looked as if they might have to relieve themselves of whatever they had ingested that day. The faces of the rest of them were unreadable but Loki could still sense their fear.

"Alright then," Thor said again and breathed out, holding out the Stormbreaker with both hands. Valkyrie grabbed the wooden handle to his left, Loki to his right.

"Now, grab our hands," Thor ordered. "And whatever happens, do _not_ let go."

Rocket jumped onto Thor's back. Shuri gulped and hesitantly reached for Valkyrie's hand. Pepper took her place next to Shuri and grabbed her hand, Stark took Pepper's, Bruce took Stark's, Rogers took Bruce's, Barton took Rogers' and Romanoff took Barton's.

Loki felt the dark voice stir when he realized that none of them would voluntarily take his hand but before the thought had time to blossom, Nebula stepped between him and the Black Widow, completing the circle. She said nothing but slightly squeezed his hand with her good one, the gesture both reassurance and apology.

And before Loki could think anything else, a bright cascade of rainbow-colored light engulfed them all and unhinged time, space and gravity around him.

* * *

"You're right," Stark gasped in the general direction of the raccoon after the Bifrost had released them on the grassland approximately half a mile from where the cabin stood bathed in the soft orange glow of a beautiful sunset. "That _was_ amazing."

" _Right_?!" Rocket exulted.

"Okay, this is one of the things I _really_ missed!" Valkyrie exclaimed, her eyes gleaming with joy.

The rest of the Avengers were not as thrilled as their companions. Loki tensely watched them stumble out of the fading light of the Rainbow Bridge and regain their footing with expressions of awe, fear and apprehension etched into their faces. Nebula lowered her gaze and took a deep breath. Rogers, Barton and Romanoff began to scan the area at once, their expressions hard as stone.

"Wow," Pepper exhaled. "This place looks so … peaceful."

"It's what he thinks he deserves," said Nebula, her face a bitter mask of disdain and pain, "after bringing _peace_ to the universe."

"It's eerily quiet," Shuri noted.

"It's undoubtedly a trap," Bruce concurred in a mechanical voice. He was wearing a Hulk-shaped version of the Iron Man armor and his metal head swung towards Loki, who felt every fiber of his body vibrate with unease in reaction to how different it felt to set foot on this planet in the flesh. The young Wakandan scientist had already drawn attention to the fact that it was too silent but, aside from that, Loki could not sense the faintest trace of magical or even sentient energy anywhere. It was almost as if the Infinity Stones and Thanos were no longer there.

"There is the cabin," whispered the Widow with a nod towards the titan's wooden quarters.

"But no Thanos on a rock," Rogers pointed out, unnecessarily.

"And no Infinity Gauntlet," Stark added.

"And no armor mounted on the scarecrow," Thor concluded, his eyes sliding to Loki. His brother did not voice his doubts but Loki could read the accusation in his eyes as clear as if he had spoken the words out loud. _You said he would be here_. _I took you at your word_.

Barton gave a snort and wasted no time articulating what Thor and everyone else was undoubtedly thinking. "I swear to you, if you lured us into a trap, I am going to gouge your eyes out," the archer growled in a low voice, his expression still unforgiving.

"I am sure I would shiver at this threat if it weren't coming from a mortal with nothing but a bow and arrow," Loki shot back.

Barton glared at him.

"Just stop it, guys," Romanoff admonished them.

 _Did you hear that? She just referred to you as one of the guys. Isn't that terrific?_

"Is there a subterranean military base, maybe?" Rogers asked in his annoyingly authoritarian instructional voice. Stark's technologically enhanced Iron Man vision was already sweeping the ground and he shook his head. "There's _nothing_ here. Not a single heat signal."

"Not even … magic?" asked Bruce.

"I sense no traces of magic," Loki replied even though he did not expect any of them to take this assessment at face value.

"It's true," said Valkyrie when the others— _surprise, surprise_ —fired skeptical glances into his direction. "There is no magical signature in the air. If Thanos used magic, he concealed it so well that not even Asgardians can pick up on it."

"But that _is_ possible, right?" asked Pepper. "Using magic that none of you would pick up upon?"

"Unlikely," Thor replied sternly. "Asgardian magic is the wellspring of every magic there is. And Thanos is not a sorcerer."

The faces of Stark and the others clearly articulated the questions that none of them asked. _So? What is that supposed to mean, anyway? And since when are you an expert on magic?_

"What about his … children?" Romanoff asked. "Those creepy alien guys? Aren't there skilled magic users among them who could have just teleported Thanos away and then teleport them all back here as they did when they attacked Wanda and Vision in Scotland out of nowhere?"

"Thanos already had the Space Stone then," Thor reminded her, his face grim. "They probably used it to teleport to Earth. I don't see how they could just world-walk on their own." He shot a frantic glance in Loki's direction. "They can't do that now that the Space Stone has become useless to them, right?"

"Wait, since when are we talking about _them_?" asked Shuri. She looked fearless and intimidating enough in her dark-blue Wakandian armor and the white dots she had painted on her black face, but her trembling voice was belying her composure. "Didn't you say he was alone?"

"He was," Loki replied but he still felt his own composure slipping. His heart nearly leaped from his chest into his mouth when he remembered the foul magic which Thanos's greatest sorcerer—who also happened to be one of _the_ most powerful sorcerers Loki had ever encountered, including the Norns, the dwarves and his own mother—had inflicted upon him to bend him to the titan's will. "The Maw," he mumbled, his voice a lot hoarser than he would have liked it to sound. "Does he still live?"

"Who was he?" Stark asked. "We …" His mechanical voice broke. "We killed one on the space ship," he continued in a trembling whisper.

Loki shapeshifted into Ebony Maw and Stark almost gagged inside his iron helmet. "Yeah, this one's dead."

"I bet it must have devastated Thanos to hear that," Loki mused, not changing back. "Ebony Maw was one of his favorite children."

"What is your point?" asked Nebula, her voice a nervous tremble.

"Jesus, can you drop that illusion, please?" Stark pleaded, heavy breaths coming like gunshots. "I can't look at you."

"Maybe neither can he," Loki speculated, a plan forming in the back of his mind. "You should stay back while Nebula and I are going to look for him. Seeing us will take him by complete surprise. It could give us an advantage."

Nebula shook her head. "He's never going to believe that I came here with the Maw."

"Why not?" Loki asked her. "Did he see him die? Does he know for certain that you have switched sides?"

The cyborg looked flustered. "No but—"

"See?" Loki smiled. "I am going to make the rest of you invisible. Do not make your move until—"

"Since when are you giving the orders?" Rogers interrupted him.

Exasperated by their continuous resistance to his every suggestion, Loki transformed himself into Captain America on impulse. "Since when are you giving the orders?" he echoed with the other man's voice, feeling a playful grin tugging at his lips.

"That's not what I sound like," Rogers grumbled.

"Um, yeah, that's exactly what you sound like," Stark replied. "Annoying, isn't it?"

"Is that who he really is when isn't being brainwashed or passing out from exhaustion?" Nebula asked Thor, face twisted in annoyance. "A clown?"

"Yes," Valkyrie and Bruce replied in unison as Barton huffed and Pepper, Shuri, Rocket and the Widow kept glancing frantically in all directions.

Out of nowhere, Loki randomly remembered when he had finally mastered his more complex shapeshifting spells and had been eager to impress his brother, who had been rather underwhelmed by the art of sorcery. One day, he had been so determined to elicit a reaction from Thor that he had transformed himself into a large falcon, swirled around the head of Odin, who had been conferring with Tyr in the Royal Garden, and squirted a load of bird-do out of his buttocks that had landed on their father's head with a giant, satisfying splash. Thor had not been able to refrain from laughter whenever he had seen Odin or Loki for days after the event. A smile tugged at Loki's lips. "Pretty much, yes," he confirmed with a wink, transforming back into the Maw. "Although I prefer God of Mischief."

"Guys," the Widow repeated, her cheeks trembling with apprehension. "This is not the time for jokes."

"I was being serious," Loki insisted.

"From what I've seen, you're _incapable_ of sincerity," Rogers noted dryly.

"No offense but we haven't come to trick, brother," Thor reminded him as gently as he probably could. "We've come to kill."

"Once you've killed him you can't ask questions anymore," Loki responded in the Maw's voice. "If you kill him before he can tell us where the Gauntlet is, we might never find it."

"This is so creepy," the raccoon mumbled.

Barton's face was a mask of exasperation. "But I thought you said it was here somewhere?"

"If it's here, we're gonna find it," Valkyrie agreed.

Before Loki could give a reply, Stark's head jerked towards the edge of the forest. "Whatever the plan's going to be, we should decide now because I'm picking up a heat signature." He stopped for a beat. "We're about to get company."

A muffled shriek left Pepper's mouth. Thor's hands tightened around the Stormbreaker's wooden handle. Shuri gulped. Nebula blew out a breath. Stark, Barton, Bruce and the Widow tensed, their bodies straining into attack mode. Valkyrie took a step forward. The raccoon cocked his gun, mumbling, "Let him come."

Without waiting for their approval, Loki shielded his involuntary companions from sight with an invisibility spell, which elicited high-pitched complaints and cries of dismay from all of them.

"Loki, stop this nonsense!" shouted Thor.

"What the _fuck_ are you doing?" yelled Stark. "I can't even _see_ my own body."

"Lift this spell now," demanded Rogers, "or you will—"

"Keep silent," Loki interrupted the captain, shushing them all by adding another layer to the spell that absorbed all auditory signals just as Thanos stepped forth from the trees in his full battle armor, a giant double-bladed sword gripped firmly in his right hand.

* * *

 _Author's note :_

 _ _This story has picked up another bunch of likes/follows and I'm grateful for every single one. Thank you so much!  
No, ___I couldn't resist to put a Loki-mocking-Cap exchange somewhere into this after Endgame and this seemed like the perfect opportunity._ _Also, "It's undoubtedly a trap" is a Hobbit reference. If I am not mistaken, this is the second one in this story. I should try and make it three just because (No one cares, I know)._

 _Thanks again. Much love x_


	30. This is your final reckoning

#30

Loki's stomach reeled at the sight of his tormentor. Judged by the sharp gasp that escaped Nebula's lips, hers did the same.

"You?" Thanos's voice boomed across the grassland, his charred face falling as he strode towards them.

Loki could feel the Avengers stir. The communication device in his ear crackled but the spell he had cast upon them prevented the message from reaching his ears. "Trust me," Loki whispered, the Maw's voice in his own ears making his flesh crawl. " _Please_. Just this once."

"Why have you come here, daughter? Why _now_?" Thanos demanded in his deep, awe-inspiring voice when he had crossed the distance to them. Beside Loki, Nebula's breathing quickened. "And _you_? The wizard told me you were dead."

"And what reason do you have to believe a lowly Terran sorcerer, oh, Mighty Thanos?" Loki enquired, remembering just in time not to use the expression _Midgardian_. His heart stumbled in his chest. "Were you not the one who always assured us that the group known as the Avengers pose no threat to your supremacy, Sire?"

Thanos's lips parted and he stared at him, his gaze a study in disbelief and confusion, which pleased Loki terribly and appeased his agitation at least a little. The titan narrowed his eyes and gazed past him, focusing the spot where the Avengers stood cloaked in invisibility, apparently still sensing their presence. "Why have you come here then, after all this time?" Thanos asked eventually. "Are you coming with information about the Avengers? Have _they_ stolen the stones' magic from me?"

"How would they manage to do _that_?" Loki asked, gleefully aware that Barton and the rest could hear his every word. "Their strength is laughable."

Beside him, he could sense Nebula shiver. The eyes of the titan narrowed even further. "They know how to use magic."

"The so-called Sorcerer Supreme did, yes, but he has met his end," Loki went on, inwardly grumbling at the memory of how the pathologically self-absorbed wizard with the red cloak and the ridiculous curl of hair had caught him entirely by surprise and sent him spiraling facedown into a seemingly never-ending portal. "Both of them, actually. And you killed the Asgardian yourself," Loki continued, unable to resist the foolishly childish urge to belatedly remediate the impression Thanos surely had of him after he had persuaded the titan of his worth for the war against Midgard before losing the scepter and failing to present him with the Tesseract and then hiding on the throne of Asgard in plain sight to escape his punishment. "Who else would know how to wrench the stones from your mighty grasp by using magic?"

Thanos's brow furrowed. "The _Asgardian_ ," he spat. "Are you saying this weasel could have stolen from me? He was nothing more than a terrified boy trying to prove himself a leader. He was _no one_!"

"He had potential," said Nebula, her voice hoarse with disuse. "You said that yourself when he was your prisoner."

The revelation raised a tiny smile from Loki.

" _Had_ , yes," Thanos repeated, seemingly oblivious of the Maw's reaction. "Past tense. But you failed to answer me. _Why_ are you here?"

"To recover the rest of the stones," Nebula replied in an astonishingly firm voice. They had not had enough time to agree upon a course of action but the cyborg's utterance had the much-desired effect of derailing the titan's facial features once more. The sight was glorious and, as far as Loki was concerned, that was all that mattered.

"Where are the stones?" Loki demanded. "Tell us where the Gauntlet is before it is too late."

"Too late?" Thanos echoed, visibly flustered. "Too late for what?"

"For the remaining half's survival," Loki clarified. "For the _universe's_ survival. The universe _you_ created. Oh, Mighty Thanos," he said with a slight bow of his head that set his intestines on fire, "I am afraid you antagonized the stones and the price for that offense is quite high, unfortunately. The very fabric of reality is unraveling at this very moment but we can still remedy your actions if you turn the Gauntlet over to us and let me attempt to reverse the spell that causes the Infinity Stone magic to dwindle."

The titan glowered at him, recovering quickly. "Remedy my actions? You speak as if I made a mistake. I made no _mis_ take," he spat. "I accomplished precisely what I set out to accomplish. I brought peace to the universe."

"I do not doubt this, oh, Mighty Thanos, but still, the stones are perish—" Loki began as tactfully as he possibly could.

"Peace," Nebula interjected with a snort. "You did not bring _peace_ to the universe. You lied to us, all of us. You made us believe that you wanted to _save_ the universe but all you did was plunge it into pain and despair!"

"All the time we spent together and you still don't understand that pain is the only thing that truly inspires people to grow," Thanos mused, his eyes sliding towards Loki in his guise. "The Maw understood. He would _never_ betray me. He shared my vision. Who are you, really?"

Loki's mind reeled with possible things he could say to remedy the situation but, unfortunately, Nebula was being carried away by all the hurt and rage Thanos had instilled in her.

"None of us ever _shared_ your vision," the cyborg spat, her voice trembling. The titan's eyes narrowed in suspicion and Loki understood at once that Thanos would not believe for a second longer that they were here to help him. "You coerced us into sharing it but we discovered what a fraud you actually are," Nebula continued, seemingly oblivious to the titan's skepticism. "You sold this vision of a peaceful universe to all of your children but, in truth, all you ever wanted was to be worshipped as a God!"

 _A universe, crippled by pain, which will arise from the ashes like the proverbial Phoenix, its inhabitants hardened by their collective trauma. And he has_ _ **created**_ _it. He is its_ _ **God**_ _._

The titan's lips curled into a sadistic grin. "A God," repeated Thanos, the threat in his voice unmistakable.

 _Y-you will never be a God._

 _In case you were wondering,_ Loki's inner God of Mischief voice chirped blithely, _you are quite—well, how do you say it nicely?—busted._

"Did you really stoop so low as to line up with the _Avengers_?" Thanos focused Loki in the Maw's guise, wielding his enormous blade for emphasis. "Reveal yourself, beguiler!"

Loki gently placed a hand on Nebula's shoulder in one last desperate attempt to keep up the illusion. "Calm yourself, Nebula," he ordered in the Maw's voice, his heartrate kicking into overdrive when the cyborg recoiled under the coldness of his words and the authority of his touch. "We have not come here to assign guilt."

The cyborg drew a deep breath, her entire body trembling with reluctance. The pebble in Loki's ear crackled madly.

"We have no intention to attack you or question the virtuousness of the mission you accomplished, Sire," Loki assured Thanos in the Maw's voice. Even though Nebula's violent reaction pained him, he found himself unable to resist his own pride and the overwhelming urge to secure the Gauntlet all by himself in order to prove his worth to the thrice-damned Avengers once and for all. "You must forgive Nebula. She has been forced to spend some time with the Avengers after you accomplished your plan and their ludicrous concepts of charity and whatnot have dazzled her."

Nebula trembled beneath his touch.

"But what is far more urgent than the question of where your daughter's allegiances lie is that you—well, all of us, really—have underestimated the Infinity Stones and just how much of an influence they have over what has been brought into existence with their magic," Loki continued, Nebula as stiff as a statue of stone beside him as she apparently tried to keep her emotions under control.

Thanos grunted and flashed him a listless smile.

"You cannot deny that their magic is fading, Sire," Loki went on, carefully checking the titan's face for any trace of resistance. When he found none, he made his voice sound as dignified and submissive as he possibly could. "So, if you'd let my humble personage examine the Gauntlet in order to—"

Before Loki could finish, Thanos lunged forward, his sword poised to attack, and roared, "Keep your vile words inside your wretched mouth! The Maw would _never_ question me!"

Loki instinctively released a seismic blast of Reality Stone magic, which shot out from his fingers in a red flame and turned into glass shards that sliced into the titan's armor with such an impact that he took a clumsy step backwards. The titan lowered his sword and recoiled ever so subtly when it dawned on him that, for once, he had underestimated his enemy.

" _You_ were the ones stealing from me," Thanos snorted. " _How_?!"

"A magician never reveals his tricks," Loki responded coolly. He had frozen at the mere memory of Thanos for the past six years but seeing him now, helpless against the Infinity Stone magic he had betrayed with his delusions of grandeur, the purple giant was no longer a threat. Well, not that much of a threat at least. Despite the singes the stones had inflicted upon him, his physical strength was still not to be underestimated.

The titan's eyes nervously darted from his daughter to Loki, who was still wearing the guise of his most cherished subject, and back to his daughter. "That's impossible," Thanos whispered to himself, his composure finally slipping a little.

"Well, for _you_ , it might be," said Loki, transforming back into his Asgardian self with a slick grin when he accepted that the titan would not hand over the Gauntlet without a fight. "But that is the difference between us. While you merely wish to be a God, _I_ truly am one."

The titan barked a contemptuous laugh. "I should have known that vermin like you would find a way to even creep out of the claws of death!" Thanos hollered, lunging forward once more. "I killed you once and I will gladly do it again!"

Loki fired another blast of Reality Stone magic into his direction, which, albeit hitching a little, finally sent his former abuser staggering. "You don't have it in yourself to defeat me," Thanos huffed, his unforgiving eyes narrowing to slits, hands tightening firmly around the grip of his sword.

Reality stirred inside his mind, murmuring a nervous warning. _Do not exhaust my magic, Loki_. _Use it wisely_. Even though the stone's words were rather unsettling, Loki still felt his lips curl into a smirk at the sight of a Thanos who was, for once, forced to acknowledge his own vulnerability. _If that isn't the perfect time to attack._ "Maybe I don't," Loki conceded, lifting the invisibility spell. "But _they_ certainly do!"

Even before the Avengers were fully uncloaked, Thor and Rogers launched an attack and sent the captain's shield sizzling with the powers of lightning towards the titan with full force. The rest of them moved into position around Loki and Nebula.

"Tell us where the Gauntlet is!" Thor bellowed.

Thanos caught the shield, the impact of its blast making him slightly trip backwards, but his facial expression did not slip. "Ah, the God of Thunder," Thanos snarled, throwing the shield back at Captain America's feet as if it was a piece of garbage. "How many nights have _you_ spent in agony, wishing you would have aimed for my head?

"I will gladly correct this mistake," Thor hollered, wielding his axe once more and lunging towards the titan with such righteous determination that Loki trembled at the mere reminder how this attitude had earned Thor the praise of all of Asgard while he himself had been—justifiably?—ridiculed for his attempts to outwit their common foes with trickery.

 _Not now, you hopeless imbecile_. _Focus!_

"The Gauntlet is of no more of use," Thanos responded, seemingly unflustered by Thor's battle cry. He ducked down and deflected the impact of the Stormbreaker with his own sword, sending the God of Thunder stumbling backwards.

"You bastard," Thor spat on a heavy breath.

"It is of no more use to _you_ ," noted Loki as he transformed Helgidómur's peaceful forest and grassland landscape into a barren, rocky desert with the Reality Stone's reddish glow, eliminating all possible hiding spots. "I can still wield the stones. She too," Loki continued with a nod at Valkyrie while he opened the pocket dimension, pulled out the scepter and handed it to her. "And he could, too," Loki finished with a motion towards Thor, "but we only have two and he has his axe, which is powerful enough in its own right."

His brother rewarded him with a big grin.

Thanos startled ever so slightly but, of course, the Norns damn his wretched soul, he recovered quickly. "Even if it is true that the Infinity Stone magic is fading, what makes you think that _you_ can stop it?" The titan gave a condescending snort. "You of all beings in this universe? Hasn't it been proven to you time and time again that your entire existence is nothing more than a giant cosmic mishap?"

Loki felt his skin heat with shame and anger but before he could react to the insult, Thor swung his axe over his head and rammed it into the rocky ground, unleashing its full might in a sizzling blast of lightning that hurled towards Thanos and stifled the titan's foul speech by sending him another two steps backwards. Valkyrie leveled the scepter at him and, eyes fiercely gleaming with joy and pugnacity, released a surge of Mind Stone magic upon the titan that finally forced him onto his knees and elicited a muffled groan of pain from his throat.

 _Oh, what a glorious day to be alive_.

"Tell us where the Gauntlet is!" Thor bellowed again.

The remaining Avengers pointed their weapons towards the titan for emphasis. Faced with Thor's axe, Shuri's vibranium guns, Hawkeye's explosive arrows, the cyborg's sword, Widow's pistols, Rocket's machine gun, the blasters of the two Iron Man suits—three if you counted Pepper's—and the remaining power of two Infinity Stones, Thanos lowered his head and closed his eyes, an eerie sound rising in his throat.

"Can we kill him now or what?" Rocket asked.

"I would love to," Stark replied, "but wouldn't that be a little too easy?"

"For the last time," Rogers ordered, "hand the Gauntlet over to us."

Thanos only snorted in response.

"Face it, father," said Nebula, her voice still thick with emotion. "You lost and you are alone."

Thanos opened his eyes and a deep, roaring laugh escaped his lips as he scrambled to his feet. "You have no right to wield these stones. Your tiny brains are incapable of grasping their significance. None of you would ever dare to make the sacrifice that I made. None of you is worthy of wielding them!"

 _Not that worthiness idiocy again_. "The Reality Stone begs to differ," Loki replied and released another seismic blast that slammed right into the titan's chest.

"If you think that this is all it can do, you haven't understood its true powers," said Thanos on a heavy breath.

Loki felt a devious laugh building up inside his chest. "No, _Mighty Thanos_ ," he mocked. "It is you who has not understood. This stone is a part of m—"

Rocket cocked his gun and fired it in the titan's direction, drowning out Loki's words. "Enough with the pseudo-intellectual chitchat, greaseball."

Loki's lips parted in protest but the raccoon gave him no chance to speak. "I say we kill raisin head now and then look for the fucking Gauntlet ourselves. Who's with me?"

"How dare you," Thanos muttered under his breath.

"Great idea," Barton acceded and, for once, Loki had to agree with the archer.

Stark leveled his iron fist at him in silent agreement but before any of them could fire their weapons again, a deafening noise filled the air and the ground began to tremble beneath Loki's feet. "What were you saying again, daughter?" Thanos asked gleefully as five colossal space ships entered the atmosphere above him. "That I was defeated and _alone_?"

Eleven pairs of eyes darted towards Loki, narrowing in suspicion and agitation as the titan's laugh boomed across the plain. "I set up military bases on each of the moons," Thanos explained with a self-satisfied half-smile tugging at his lips. He glared at Nebula. "Have you still not learned how grave of a mistake it is to underestimate me, daughter?"

From the corner of his eye, Loki saw Iron Man, Pepper, Valkyrie and Thor lift off the ground and rush up to the descending space ships, the gaze of the remaining Avengers unable to fly burning into his skin.

"Alone and vulnerable, huh?" asked the Widow with a grim expression.

"I told you he was lying," Barton grumbled.

"We're doomed," whispered Shuri.

"I wasn't lying," Loki objected weakly. Thor and the others fired their weapons at the ships but their combined energetic blasts ricocheted off the ships' surfaces as if they were made of uru.

Loki sucked at his bottom lip, asking, "How was I supposed to anticipate that?" even though he was fully aware that he should have anticipated _exactly_ that after he had spent close to a year in the titan's bondage and had witnessed first-hand how his military forces operated.

" _I_ was supposed to anticipate that," Nebula said softly, her eyes going hard with self-loathing. "That's how he always built his strongholds."

"It's too bad that you were blind with rage and a thirst for revenge though," said Thanos, his voice dripping with so much contempt that Loki's entire body went cold. The titan had tortured him too, yes, but he was no one to him. Nebula had grown up as his daughter and still Thanos had seemingly inflicted upon her as much sorrow and terror as he had inflicted upon him, if not more. The very thought churned his stomach.

Nebula uttered a bone-chilling cry and surged forward with her sword.

"No!" Loki shouted. Overcome by a sudden urge to protect her from suffering even one more violation at the hands of her so-called father, he sprang after her and tried to grab her by the wrist but the cyborg was faster. Propelled by sheer rage, she stormed towards Thanos. From behind Loki, Captain America threw his shield at the titan and sent it swishing past the cyborg, but Thanos effortlessly fought back the attack and sent the shield back in their direction with his enormous double-bladed sword, the clang of metal against metal echoing through the air. When Nebula reached him a mere second after, he swung his sword again, his blade clashing into hers, and sent her flying back a few feet. She slumped onto the ground, grunting in pain.

"You will never defeat me," Thanos spat. The space ships were landing behind him at this very moment, the members of the Black Order spilling out flanked by the Chitauri as soon as the ramps opened. Valkyrie, Thor, Stark and Pepper opposed them as they marched out of the space ships' bellies but there were so many of them and the sight of the force he had once led into battle against New York sent Loki into momentary paralysis, depriving him of the ability to breathe.

Beside him, Nebula staggered to her feet, hands loosely clasped around her sword.

"Any spontaneous ideas?" Widow asked.

"Except for fighting them?" Bruce asked back, an awkwardly intimate glance passing between the two of them.

"Not getting ourselves killed would be nice," Shuri whispered as she fired a gleaming, purple ray of vibranium energy at Thanos, who was striding back towards them, his sword poised ready to attack. He sidestepped under the impact but it did not slow him down.

"We need a plan of attack," Rogers barked.

Shuri gulped audibly and fired her gun once more, again to no avail.

"We hardly have time for that, do we?" Barton scoffed. "Let's just, yeah," he continued with a frantic side-glance at the young Wakandan scientist, "try to not get ourselves killed." He drew the bowstring of his weapon to his ear and fired an arrow at the titan just as Rogers threw his shield at him and Rocket and the Widow fired at him with their Midgardian weaponry.

Thanos somehow managed to catch the archer's arrow in mid-air, crushing it in his giant purple hands and throwing it aside while simultaneously deflecting the shield with his sword, the bullets of the mortals' guns bouncing off his armor. The shield hurtled back towards them and slammed into Rogers with full force, driving him to his knees. Through his earpiece, Loki heard his brother and the others gasp in exasperation as they attempted to fight off the Chitauri.

"I'm not trying to be a smartass here but another blast of Infinity Stone magic would be just _the_ _thing_ right now!" Rocket roared above the noise of his rather useless machine gun.

Loki reached for the magic of the Reality Stone but Thanos had already crossed the distance between them and was drawing himself to his full height, his face only an arm's length away. Staring into the titan's merciless eyes, Loki felt his blood go cold again, the much-needed Reality Stone magic congealing inside of him.

"Loki, Prince of Asgard, Odinson, rightful king of Jotunheim, God of Mischief," Thanos snorted, raising his sword above his head. "I dare say this is the day of your final reckoning!"


	31. An impeccable team

#31

Even though Loki had none more than a split second to take action, time seemed to miraculously slow down around him in that peculiar life-flashing-before-one's-eyes-in-one's-final-moments sort of way. And all be damned, if this particular sensation was not familiar. He had experienced it three times, after all, and he would not be Loki if his mind did not wondrously decide for itself what was going to happen. Which was the reason why he found himself shapeshifting into a horsefly as he had in the paltry myths the humans had made up about him before he even knew it, every atom in his body beginning to vibrate when it started to shrink to the size of a silver dollar just before the titan's stroke fell.

"What the," Thanos mumbled as his sword sliced through empty air and Loki swirled past his burned cheek in his insect guise. Nebula's mouth gaped open.

Bruce, who had not made a move until now, used the moment of surprise to fire a charge of Iron Man's arc reactor energy at the titan but Thanos only grunted.

"Where the fuck did he go?" Rocket exclaimed nervously. Next to him, the faces of Shuri and the Widow had frozen in terror. Captain America was heaving himself back to his feet, letting out an exhausted breath. Barton, who looked no less terrified than his mortal companions did, huffed out a mirthless laugh. "Probably teleported himself—"

Loki transformed back into his Asgardian self behind Thanos before the archer could finish his sentence and released a blast of Reality Stone magic into the titan's back that sent him stumbling forwards. Rogers had picked up his shield by then and was throwing himself at Thanos, slamming the shield into his neck. Thanos stumbled and then swirled around, spitting a breathless "Vermin!" into Loki's direction. The titan charged towards him but Rogers intercepted the attack like the accursed hero he believed he was.

Captain America's intervention gave Loki the briefest of moments to assess the situation. The first thing that registered with him was that his brother's movements were slower than usual and he inferred that this was the case because Thor was unable to unleash the full power of his weapon lest he electrocuted all of his friends along with the enemy. Then Loki's eyes slid towards Valkyrie, who, albeit having released a blast of Mind Stone energy at Thanos earlier, was now inexplicably using the scepter as if it was nothing more than a norndamned bludgeon that could be whacked over her opponents' heads instead of releasing the magic locked within it. "May I kindly remind you that you are holding the power of an Infinity Stone inside your hands?" Loki enquired over the communication system as the army began to close in around them and Nebula, Bruce, Romanoff, Rocket, Shuri and Barton took them on rather clumsily. "Either use it or hand it back to me!"

"I am kind of busy here," Valkyrie replied breathlessly.

"Is it just me or were they a lot easier to kill in New York?" Stark asked on a groan of exhaustion.

"It _is_ you," Thor provided flatly. "The journey across the Rainbow Bridge put a strain on you."

His brother's response elicited a shriek from Pepper, whose movements, Loki saw, were worryingly ataxic. Thor was right, of course. Loki had not devoted any serious attention to the condition of their mortal companions after arriving on Hélgidomur but it was obvious to him now that the exposure to the sheer power of the Bifrost for the length of their journey had deprived the Avengers of most, if not all, of their physical and mental strength. Rocket was clutching his machine gun but had not fired a single shot for minutes. Rather, he seemed to focus all his energy on dodging the enemies' blows in order to stay alive. Bruce Banner was stumbling across the battlefield like a drunken emu in his Hulk-shaped armor. Tony Stark moved much slower and clumsier in his Iron Man suit than Loki remembered. Barton and the Widow, who had both received intense physical training, were struggling to keep up the fight and even the inexhaustible Steve Super Soldier Rogers was panting like a sweating dog as he fought off the titan's blows. Not to mention Shuri, who looked so tiny and forlorn in the midst of the battlefield that Loki could not help but fear for her survival, or Nebula, who might not have been physically tired but was certainly too mentally depleted to fight.

 _Think_ , Loki's inner voice urged but he too was feeling the aftermath of traveling on the magical rays of the Rainbow Bridge. _Make use of your sly mind_. _This is how you win_. This was true, of course, but it just so happened that his mind was still half-paralyzed with fear while, at the same time, peculiarly throbbing with excitement. Apart from that, his stomach was clenching in hunger, threatening to devour itself. _Focus_. _Just focus_. Loki glanced at Thor, whose far-too controlled lightning blasts zigzagged through the air, electrocuted the Chitauri and then crashed into the ground, splitting open the rocky surface Loki had brought into existence with the Reality Stone.

 _Not the perfect matter for lightning to reach its full potential, eh?_ Loki thought of the incident that had unfolded on their way from Norway to New York and announced, "I have an idea," in full awareness of the response that his words were going to prompt.

Valkyrie's skeptical "Oh no" did not disappoint.

To his surprise, however, Stark panted a breathless, "Bringing us out here on your fucking Bifrost was the shittiest idea ever, so this one can only be better."

"I wouldn't bet on it," Barton wheezed while Rogers expressed his disapproval with a harrumph.

"Move back here," Loki commanded with a glance at his involuntary comrades, who were scattered across the field. He felt the titan's eyes sliding towards him as he continued, "Move into position behind me."

A chorus of _why's_ reached his ears in at least five different voices. Thanos's face was pinched with anger as he hurled Rogers away and began striding towards Loki, apparently sensing that the captain no longer posed the greatest threat in that moment.

"Because," Loki responded quietly as he reached for the magic of the Reality Stone even though he could feel the exhaustion seeping into his own bones, "I am going to transform the ground into water in five—"

Pepper took off into the air with a shriek.

"Wait!" Shuri shouted in a wobbly voice.

"Four," Loki continued with his eyes on Thanos.

"Loki, _no_!" Widow screamed as she, Barton, Nebula and Bruce tried to draw away from the Chitauri.

Thor had apparently figured out Loki's intentions, for he yelled, "Do it, brother!"

Loki gave a nod. "Three."

Iron Man flew into his general direction, picking up Shuri and Rocket while simultaneously releasing missiles from his armor that fired at the Chitauri.

"Two," said Loki.

Thanos was only a few feet in front of him now. "You miserable—"

"One!" Loki yelled. Reality complied instantly, and the rocky surface beneath his feet liquefied, swallowing up him and everyone else around him with an ear-shattering _swoosh_. Panicked shrieks and frantic gulps came from both the Chitauri and the Avengers. Thanos roared furiously, his arms and legs kicking in the water.

The Reality Stone's magic hitched in protest as Loki attempted to create an island for his brother's friends.

" _This_ is your plan?" yelled Rogers, swallowing water as he spoke. "This is reckless and—"

"It is not the extent of it, obviously," Loki gasped with hectic glances at the humans, who tried to keep their bodies afloat while simultaneously defending themselves against the claws of the Chitauri reaching for them in and across the water.

"Hurry, brother!" was Thor's less than helpful directive.

 _I am trying, numbskull_. Gathering what few resources of mental strength he possessed, Loki shapeshifted into his Jotun form, feeling the silver markings identifying him as the son of a father who had left him to perish on a frozen rock in Jotunheim thrusting through his skin with a pricking sensation. He took a deep breath and froze the water's surface behind him into ice, every fiber inside of him quivering with fatigue. "Quick," he gurgled, water splashing into his mouth. "Climb onto it."

Pepper and Iron Man flew towards the refuge at once, with Shuri and Rocket in tow, who both collapsed onto the ice. Pepper too sank to her knees, coughing. Thanos was clinging to his gigantic and undoubtedly tremendously heavy sword as he struggled to keep himself afloat but he realized soon enough that he would have to let go of it. Valkyrie, Rogers and Thor pulled themselves up onto the ice while the Chitauri swam towards them, trying to grab the feet of Barton, Bruce and the Widow, who were struggling to heave themselves onto the platform after the others. Thor, Stark and Rogers bent down to drag them up while Valkyrie used the handle of the scepter to knock them away.

 _What a waste of such a formidable weapon_ , thought Loki but there was no time to dwell on this observation. Thanos was swimming towards him and Nebula, whose frantic kicking and splashing movements as she tried to hold on to her own sword seemed to attract her father as if he were a shark tasting a trickle of blood in the water.

Thor moved into position, fingers curled around the handle of the Stormbreaker, hurrying them along once more. Nebula swirled around towards the platform but Thanos grabbed her by the leg, pulling her towards him. "You will not defeat me, daughter," he gasped. "Do you hear me? You will not—"

"Let her go!" Loki screamed.

Seemingly surprised by the sheer force of his voice, Thanos let go of the cyborg and scrunched up his nose. "You think you are a worthy opponent now?" he spat while Rogers used the moment of distraction to pull Nebula towards him and onto the ice. "I can still smell the fear on you, Asgardian."

Loki growled and hurled a wave of water against the titan that froze him into a cocoon, leaving only his horribly charred head sticking out. Thanos hissed and struggled against it, cracking the ice. Loki took a frantic breath, swallowed a mouthful of water and began to cough. His vision blurred, leaving him disoriented. All he could hear for a few seconds was the titan's angry growl when, suddenly, he felt two metallic hands hooking into his armpits.

"Gotcha," said Stark's mechanical voice, which was followed by another groan of exhaustion as he dragged Loki out of the water with the help of the blasters under his iron feet. "How heavy are you, for fuck's sake?"

Loki slumped onto the ice on all fours, his reply drowned out by another violent cough. When the coughing fit finally subsided, he slightly turned his head and watched his brother summon the full might of the Stormbreaker as Thor stood on the ice with his legs shoulder-width apart, his crackling axe raised over his head, the sky darkening above them. With a furious battle cry, Thor lowered the axe and unleashed a lightning blast into the water that sizzled across the surface in flashes of bright blue and electrocuted the titan's entire force.

The Avengers—Barton, Stark, Romanoff, Nebula, Valkyrie and Rogers crouching, the others lying on the ice on either their backs or their stomachs—watched as the Chitauri shrieked and struggled and then, one by one, sank below the surface of the water.

"Did he just …" Rocket stammered, his snout gaping open.

"Take out the entire army with one blow?" Valkyrie finished for the raccoon, a bright smile lighting up her face. "Yes."

"The Mighty Thor," Loki whispered and for the first time in centuries, he said it with affection instead of resentment.

"With Loki's quick wit and Thor's brute strength combined, they made an impeccable team," Pepper murmured to no one in particular.

Rocket shot her an incredulous glance. "What?"

"That's what the Old Norse myths say about them," Pepper whispered.

Loki felt a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he suddenly recalled the old times when he and Thor had descended to Midgard together with their father during the late Viking Age, aiding those who had prayed for their help in order to turn the battle in their favor. He allowed himself to close his eyes for the fraction of a moment but the tingles shooting along his spine alerted him to an imminent threat. Loki's eyes snapped back open just as Stark asked, "The _entire_ army?", and Rogers added, " _Where_ is Thanos?"

"I …" Thor began but his voice trailed off. "He was in the water."

"But did you see him drown?" asked the Widow.

"Did anyone?" Valkyrie added.

Loki felt a jolt of panic tearing through his nerves and muscles and heaved himself to his feet on unsteady legs, surveying the ice. The titan was heaving himself onto the platform about seventy feet from them, his breathing slow and heavy. Thor, Nebula and Valkyrie charged into his direction at once. Loki cursed under his breath as he staggered after them, the damnably righteous Captain America on his heels.

"Now that you are truly alone and defeated, let's try again, shall we?" Thor asked with a condescending grin as he faced the titan, the Stormbreaker ready to wreak havoc once more. " _Where_ is the Infinity Gauntlet?"

Behind Loki, Stark, Barton and Romanoff came stumbling into their direction. Thanos snorted and jerked his head at the water surrounding them. "You will have to ask your scoundrel of a brother."

Loki heard the Avengers hawk behind him, breaking out into semi-panicked murmurs insinuating a potential betrayal on his part, but he paid no heed to their inimical reaction. "You have the nerve to call me a scoundrel?" he asked, his heart leaping into his throat as he forced himself to lock eyes with Thanos. " _You_ , who are delusional enough to think yourself a God when all you truly are is a _disgrace_ to all the wielders of the Infinity Stones that came before you?"

Thanos smiled thinly. "And what kind of God are you, Loki of _Asgard_?" He snorted a laugh. "I can sense your—"

" _Where_ is the Gauntlet?" Rogers cut in, his face an unforgiving wall of stone.

"Somewhere beneath the surface of all that water, Captain," Thanos responded calmly. That he was still standing his ground against them and did not appear to be troubled in the least even though Thor had obliterated his entire military force only moments ago went miles to attest to his delusional belief in his own invulnerability.

"Then we shall find it," Thor decided, wielding his axe for emphasis before he fired such a powerful lightning blast at the titan that Thanos gritted his teeth and groaned in agony, his enormous frame convulsing with the electricity crackling on his armor.

Loki raised his hands on impulse and, drawing on resources of mental strength that he had not known he still possessed, froze the titan's quavering body into another cocoon of ice. Again, Thanos strained his muscles, struggling against his prison and causing the ice to crack. Fueled by an insanely powerful urge to finally see the titan vanquished, Loki blindly hurled more and more ice against his torturer until the frozen blanket around Thanos had thickened enough to leave him immobile. Thanos made a sound halfway between a groan and a cackle. "My death will not change anything," he panted. "The new universe will remain. You can _not_ undo what I created."

Next to Loki, Nebula straightened, fingers tightly curled around the hilt of her sword. "Yes, we can."

"And we will." Thor swung his axe and raised it above his head, readying himself to deliver the killing blow he had failed to deliver on the battlefield all those weeks ago.

Loki raised his hand. "Brother, stop," he said with a nod towards Nebula. Thor opened his mouth in protest but the cyborg was already lunging forward with a bone-chilling screech, pulling her weapon over her head. "This is for Gamora!" she howled as she drove the blade deep into her father's throat, right through his Adam's apple.

Loki stood mesmerized, the reality around him dissolving into a blur as he watched Thanos choke on his blood, his charred, purple face warping with pain and terror for a few terribly long and agonizing moments before the spark of life in his eyes finally went out. Tears of relief sprang to Loki's eyes and he felt the weight of an entire mountain chain lifting off his chest. The sensation made him so dizzy that he sank to his knees. He heard Nebula dry-heave next to him but did not find it in himself to look up.

A hand squeezed his shoulder with reassurance. "It's over, brother," he heard Thor say. Loki choked on a sob and drew in a sharp breath to veil his emotional reaction. _Was it, really?_

Thor plopped down beside him and casually looped an arm around his shoulders. Loki blinked, willing his surroundings into focus. Even though his vision absorbed the sight in front of him—the head of Thanos poking out of the ice, his lifeless gaze, the blade sticking out of his throat, the blood streaming out of the wound and his slightly parted lips, trickling down the ice and dripping onto the ground—Loki's brain could not quite grasp the implications yet.

 _Yes, it is over_ , _Loki_. _After six years of carving out a miserable existence filled with dread and anguish, your nightmare is finally over_.

Nebula, Loki saw, had sunk to her knees as well and was whimpering softly, Tony Stark and Rocket beside her. He jerked away from his brother's touch and buried his head in his hands, forcing his beating heart into slowing its erratic pumping with deep breaths.

Minutes crawled by as he sat in silence amidst the Avengers while they were all trying to recover their strength.

"So, how do we find the Gauntlet, then?" Rogers asked after a while. His eyes landed on Loki, but there was no flicker of either hostility or distrust in them. "Can you transform the planet back to what it was?"

Loki blew out a long, quaky breath. "I could try," he replied even though he entertained no hope that he could muster either the physical strength or the mental focus to perform a task of such monumental proportions after the ordeal he had just put his body through. Unsurprisingly, his assumptions proved to be true.

The Avengers let out sighs of disappointment, frustration and— _hold on, what is that?_ —sympathy when the water remained, well, water.

"It was a good plan though," Bruce quietly acknowledged after a dreadfully long pause.

"A reckless and impulsive plan," said the Widow, "but, yeah, it worked to our advantage."

Loki smiled at what their words implied. "Do I hear a silent 'thank you' somewhere between those lines, Agent Romanoff?"

Barton heaved a sigh of mild annoyance.

"Wait," Valkyrie exclaimed just as the Widow was about to answer. Valkyrie lowered her gaze to the scepter in her hands and the flicker in her eyes told Loki that she finally recognized its unspeakable value. "The stones are linked to one another, right? You said that they communicate with each other, that the other stones tried to warn the Mind Stone of Thanos's plan?"

"Yes," Loki replied and extended his hand towards her, silently chiding himself for not having thought of the possibility she had just insinuated himself. "It is worth a try."

"What is?" asked Rocket.

"Wait, are you gonna try to use the Mind Stone to, what, _call_ the Gauntlet?" Stark enquired incredulously. "Even though it tried to _take over_ your mind?"

"Absolutely," Loki said with a grin as Valkyrie reluctantly handed him the scepter. It was an adventurous plan—borderline insane, some might say—but the desire to leave this place and the titan's horridly frozen corpse was far stronger than the respect he had developed for the Mind Stone after the events that had unfolded in the Avengers compound earlier that day.

"You really are crazy," Bruce noted.

"Thank the Norns for that," Loki responded cheerily. "Otherwise, ninety percent of my plans would probably not come to fruition."

Rogers shook his head in what might have been despair or exasperation but Thor smiled sheepishly at him and shrugged his shoulders as if to say that his brother had a point.

Sensing the gaze of the Avengers on his skin, Loki drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes, reaching for the Mind Stone's powers. _Go find your friends_ , he whispered inwardly. He steeled his mental defenses against the stone's assault but Mind merely hissed at him in response. Fortunately, it was a tenuous hiss. _Your powers are fading_ , Loki continued, hazarding a wild guess. _You wasted the last of your strength on the attempt to_ _coalesce with my mind and now you are fading_. _You are all fading_. _I assume you lied to me when you said that I have to be the one to release you but, as it turns out, I truly am your only hope now, if you like it or not_.

 _Do not flatter yourself._ _ **She**_ _is coming_ , said Mind. _She will rescue us_.

 _Who?_ Loki asked even though he had a fairly good idea whom the stone was talking about.

 _You will see_ , was Mind's listless reply.

 _Will I, now?_ Loki asked. _Well, whomever you think might be coming had better hurry then, don't you think? For as far as I can see, you do not have an awful lot of time left and I dare say you will agree that rescuing you will be a lot easier if you all reside in the same place_.

Mind bristled once more but the air above Loki began to pulsate palpably with the invisible energies of magic, faint though they were.

 _See? That wasn't so hard, was it?_ Loki asked, a tingle of accomplishment rushing through his veins. _Now, I command you to be a good stone and call the rest_.

* * *

 ** _Author's Note:_**

 _This chapter is, in parts, the result of a very fruitful and extremely delightful discussion I had with AkiraRedtiger when we got to spent our vacation together these past two weeks. At the risk of sounding incredibly sentimental, let me just say that I am incredibly thankful for both your continuous advice and encouragement, and your friendship. I am so glad to have met you on this site! And for everyone who finds themselves in need of reading another story that touches upon the sentience of the Infinity Stones and whatever it is they might desire, check out Akira's story 'Whatever its name' because I guarantee you, you will not be disappointed._

 _Also, a heartfelt thanks must go to everyone who recently added this story to their favorites and follows. It truly means a lot. If you have the time, please leave me a short comment._

 _Thank you and see you soon xoxo_


	32. She is coming, brother!

#32

Thor gazed at the water's surface in grueling expectation, a highly explosive mixture of emotions bubbling up inside his chest. The strongest of them was concern for his brother since every muscle in Loki's blue face was straining with the effort to harness the Mind Stone's energy. Again. And, even if he had never paid an overwhelming lot of attention to the art of sorcery itself, Thor knew very well that all the magic Loki had wielded thus far was going to deplete him entirely. He was also slightly irritated that his brother had jerked away from his touch, seemingly unwilling to share his relief. And what a relief it had been! Thor's entire body was still trembling with it and had been ever since Thanos had, at last, taken his final breath. His heart had come awfully close to bursting upon the realization that the Norns had finally allowed him to make reparations for the fateful mistake he had committed on the battlefield of Wakanda. Even though he had not been able to kill the titan himself—as he had sworn to himself he would during many a sleepless night—he knew that he had contributed as much as he had needed to in order to defeat him. He knew too that Loki had made the right call when he had relinquished the killing blow to Nebula. This, as everything else his brother had accomplished in the past hours, spoke of his personal growth and Thor could hardly wait for his friends to acknowledge this. Apart from that, however, he also dreaded their return to Earth, for he had promised Loki that he would tell him what was weighing on his mind and how could he possibly do that? How could he possibly admit to having made a bargain with Hela? How could he possibly tell his friends what he had done after going out of his way to assure them that his little trickster brother could be trusted? As far as Thor could tell, Loki had not concocted a single scheme—well, a tiny one, if one were so inclined to count the mirage of a time rift to propel them into action as a scheme—since his return to Midgard and if he were to reveal to them now that he, the virtuous God of Thunder, had acted on selfish instinct alone when he had offered one of their souls in exchange for that of his brother, what would they think of _him_? They would turn to him in suspicion, chastising him with the same kind of distrust, disappointment and enmity they had chastised Loki with and Thor's stomach churned at the mere thought of it. He still found it hard to believe that he had maneuvered himself into such a mess. None of this had ever been supposed to happen and none of this would _ever_ have happened if—

Suddenly, Thor felt his body reacting to a faint hum of magic in the air. He drew a deep breath, trying to shake off the thoughts that were clouding his mind. As if through a veil, he heard his friends gasp out in astonishment. Thor blinked to regain his focus and saw that the surface of the water trembled and a colossal wave began to surge rapidly in the distance. Loki was holding out his hands but the crackle of magic on his fingertips did not materialize into anything substantial.

"What the—" Thor heard Shuri murmur but the young scientist's words died on her tongue when the water came rushing into their direction.

Thor sprang to his feet in alarm and stretched out his arms to absorb the force of the wave. Steve too shot to his feet but then crouched down in front of Shuri, who appeared to be in the direst need of protection of them all, and held up his shield against the water. Rocket scrambled towards them on all fours, cowering down behind the scientist. Tony, Valkyrie and Bruce rose to protect their companions as well. The remaining Avengers raised their arms and crossed them in front of their faces to shield their mouths, eyes and noses just in time before the wave broke on the ice, dousing them all with a torrent of gelid water.

Thor could not prevent a victorious laugh from booming out of his mouth when the wave receded and washed up the torched golden glove, sending it swirling across the ice before it chinked against the iron feet of Tony's armor. _Maybe, things are going to work out just fine after all_.

Loki released his grip on the scepter's handle and briefly closed his eyes with a relieved smile smoothing his tensed expression. The water on his cheeks and in his hair solidified into tiny ice crystals that made him look as if he was sparkling. Thor would not have been able to say why, but the sight made him smile. Tony bent down and picked up the Infinity Gauntlet, turning it over in his hands with an expression of mesmerized curiosity on his face. The remaining stones, Thor noted instantly, were no longer flickering as they had for uncountable millennia. Just as his brother had tried to tell them earlier, the light of Power, Time, Soul and Space had faded almost entirely.

Loki gently placed the scepter beside him, stretched out his arms and yelled a triumphant "Tadaaa!" before he sank onto the ice on his back.

"I _told_ you," Thor exclaimed, giddy with gratitude and happiness, "that he had no more reason to betray us!"

Steve exhaled a heavy breath and turned towards Loki. "I think we owe you both an apology and a thank you."

Loki huffed out an incredulous half-laugh in mockery of such display of emotion, but the Thundergod could not care less that his eyes were stinging with tears of relief and gratitude. For now, they had succeeded. Except for Tony, whose gaze was still fixated on the gauntlet, the other Avengers seemed relieved and happy, their features smoothing with smiles of gladness as Thanos was finally lying—well, standing frozen—dead at their feet and the Infinity Stones were in their possession. And even if their victory entailed the dreadful consequence of having to face up to what he had promised Hela in exchange for Loki's life very soon, it was all that mattered to Thor for now after he had spent so many nights in sleepless, guilt-ridden misery. He also found himself strangely unbothered by the fact that the demise of the stones was most definitely upon them because, all of a sudden, he sensed in every fiber of his being—or wanted to sense, but what did it matter?—that the Norns intended them to find a way to prevent it. And maybe even rescue him from the bargain he had so foolishly made with his accursed half-sister because that was what he Norns _did_ , wasn't it? They weaved the threads of fate for all the Aesir and, surely, the Norns would not want him to fail? It was unthinkable, wasn't it, that they would want _him_ of all Asgardians to fail after one or two missteps—or maybe ten, but who was counting?—when Odin had remained in their favor for an unthinkably long time despite his delinquencies against all the other realms. Especially now, that both Odin and Frigga were residing in Valhalla and he was left to guide their people into a new age. And if they didn't want him to do that, then what _was_ the purpose of their existence? If they wanted _Asgard_ to fail, then what—

"Which is one is the Soul Stone?" Tony was asking softly, absentmindedly, but the other man's voice only registered on the edge of Thor's consciousness.

"The orange one," Nebula replied in a small, broken voice.

"Stark, _don't_!" Loki shouted in unison with Rocket's panicked cry of "Tony, _no_!" and a hysterical screech from Nebula, which finally shook Thor out of his pondering. His eyes widened with dread as he belatedly registered that the iron glove around Tony's right hand was inexplicably vanishing. "No!" Thor screamed. _What by Odin's all-seeing eye is he doing? Didn't he just silently call Loki crazy for trying to open his conscious to the Mind Stone again?_ Loki had jolted to his feet beside him but the engineer's bare fingers were already touching the Soul Stone as if in an attempt to remove it from the gauntlet. A bolt of magic tore through the air and before Thor could think of anything to do, Tony dropped the Infinity Gauntlet with a bloodcurdling cry of pain, his hand crackling in a blaze of pumpkin and honey shades.

"Oh God, Tony!" Pepper cried out. Tony groaned, his gaze a study of confusion as he cradled his burned right hand to his chest with the iron glove around his left to extinguish the hissing flames.

"You're _not_ to touch an Infinity Stone with your bare hands!" Loki yelled, staggering towards Tony, his body swaying with exhaustion. "You are _mortal_! What in all the Realms were you _thinking_ , you iron-clad imbecile?"

"You said their magic was extinct," came Tony's flat reply. Pepper, Thor noted from the corner of his eye, was shaking her head in exasperation and anguish in response to Tony's borderline suicidal curiosity.

"Almost," Loki gasped, his face pinched with genuine concern. "I said _almost_." He had crossed the distance to the other man by then, reaching for his hand. "Let me see."

"No need … I can …" Tony's voice trailed off as he lifted his left hand and began to spray a seething, foam-like substance onto his hand. The flames, however, sucked up the potion he had once praised as nanotech. "I-I don't … under-stand … I …"

"Remember when I tried to get it through your idiotically stubborn head that you are no match for Infinity Stone magic, Stark?" Loki had grabbed Tony's hand and was inspecting the damage the Soul Stone had inflicted upon it. "Now do you finally believe me?"

"Can you …?" Tony asked with a desperate glimpse at his right hand. Its flesh was so scorched that the bones of his fingers were glaringly exposed. _Fix it_ , was what he left unsaid as his stare went blank.

"Stark?" Loki's voice quavered as he grabbed the other man by the shoulders, shaking him violently.

"Wh-what is happening?" Pepper shrieked.

"I suppose h-he gave them a fright," Loki mumbled with a frantic glance towards the scepter. The Mind Stone locked inside the weapon, Thor noted, was flickering madly, as if in sore distress. "They are indignant, restless, unhinged. By all the Realms, _what_ were you thinking, Stark?" Loki shook him once more but Tony remained unresponsive. Pepper had rushed to his side, her hands clasped around his face. "Toneeeeee! Say something!"

"Is that—" Natasha began.

"The Soul Stone," mumbled Nebula.

"Is it …" Valkyrie's voice trailed off.

"Loki?" Thor asked, the chills of a crippling panic creeping up his spine.

"No need to descend into panic just now!" Loki was trying to soothe them but the tremble in his voice gave away that he too was clueless as to what exactly was transpiring and that he was no less distraught by the potential horrors of that something than the rest of the Avengers. His eyes were flickering madly as the wheels in his mind were undoubtedly turning at the speed of light. "He is probably …"

"Probably what?!" demanded Steve.

"I don't _know_!" Loki shouted hysterically. "If you ask me to hazard a guess, I would say he is glimpsing into the Soul World right now."

Nebula gasped out in horror. "You mean he is seeing …" Her voice broke.

"Wait, you said the Soul Stone claimed our … and that it might … might _hurt_ them, right?" Clint whispered, aghast.

"But …" Tears were streaming down Pepper's face, smothering whatever she was going to say.

"Is he going to die?" asked Shuri, her voice small and scared.

"No," Loki replied instantly but it did not sound as convincing as Thor would have hoped.

"Fuck," mumbled Rocket.

"This can't have been all for nothing," Bruce whimpered, more to himself than to anyone else. "There must be a way to …"

"Can't you do something with your _fucking_ magic?" Natasha screamed at Loki, whose gaze was resting on Tony in genuine concern. "I don't …" His voice trailed off. "Just let me _think_ for one second, alright?"

"Think faster!" Valkyrie hollered.

Thor glanced at his friends without really seeing them, an enormous lump swiftly forming in his throat. Tears sprang to his eyes. His chest tightened, squeezing the air out of his lungs. The realization that Tony could die while he was standing right next to him, that he could die anyway because he had promised Hela … that he had failed to protect his friends once again, that he was absolutely … The panic and the rage and the paralyzing helplessness—the helplessness most of all—brought back the horrid sensation of Thanos's breath on his cheeks as the sky went gray with the ashes of the humans he had sworn to protect under oath ... _You should have_ … Thor hectically gulped for a deep breath but his entire mouth had gone numb, his tongue as heavy as a piece of lead.

And then something inside of him snapped and he raised the Stormbreaker over his head with all he force he could muster in his state of numb breathlessness, releasing an enraged thunderbolt at the gauntlet that Tony had dropped onto the ice. "Leave his soul alone, you wretched lying hag!"

His friends sprang away as the crackling lightning blast bit into the uru with a deafening hiss.

"And _I_ am the maniac," he heard Loki growl. "Sure."

Tony slumped to the ground, coughing, and Pepper slid down beside him, screaming his name. The engineer blinked, slowly focusing. For the briefest of moments, the others remained standing in an apprehensive silence but Thor could feel in his bones that this was only what the humans so endearingly referred to as 'the calm before the storm' and, of course, the Norns proved him right. The ground beneath their feet began to tremble, slightly at first as the Infinity Gauntlet emitted a quiet hissing sound that resembled the noise of air streaming out of a balloon, and then more violently.

A chanted wordless whisper reached Thor's ears from very, very far away and every muscle in his body tensed as a throbbing ache inside his skull alerted him to the distant but unmistakable presence of a magic even more ancient and more malevolent than the one locked inside the gauntlet. It was the same as … _Help me, brother …_ No, that could _not_ be true, could it? _Did I really call on you for help?_ … _Yes_. _I heard you call out to me in a dream_.

 _All the Realms be fucking_ _ **damned**_ _!_

"Thor?" Loki asked, his blue lips quivering with awe. "Hún er að koma, bróðir," he whispered in Asgardian.

 _Wh-what? Why is she coming now? I still have_ _ **time**_ _! I still have—_

"Nemesis," Loki concluded softly. _But who knows_. _Maybe it wasn't you after all_. _Maybe it was the seventh stone calling on your behalf_ … Thor's heart gave a violent, desperate lurch and then the dark-blue sky above them, which had still shimmered with the last orange rays of light of the setting sun until then, turned pitch-black all of a sudden, plunging them all into utter darkness.

"What now?" Steve panted in such a panicked voice that Thor froze at hearing his friend, whom he had come to know as invincible and unshakable, so flustered and afraid. "What is—"

"Is this the universe … unraveling?" whispered Shuri, the disbelief and fear in her voice almost palpable. Thor found himself unable to produce a verbal answer. All that left his lips was an aghast gulp. _What did I do now?_ From somewhere beside him, Thor heard Tony pant, "Was that my …" Apparently, the other man was still too stunned or in too much pain to speak.

A panicked "Loki?" came from the rabbit.

"Yes," Loki hissed. By the sound of it, he bent down to pick up the gauntlet in one swift motion. Two seconds later, the faintest of light reddish glows began to radiate from his delicate blue fingers, and there was no doubt that his glamour was going to burn itself out anytime now. His brother was in sore need of a rest. They all were.

"This is hopeless," Loki gasped as Thor's eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness around him. "Summon the Bifrost! Now!"

"Are you out of your _mind_?" Natasha screamed at him. "That damned Rainbow Bridge of yours almost ripped us apart!"

"What other chance do we have?" Loki yelled back. "We have no way of knowing what happened to Tony and I cannot help him." His voice was cracking and Thor shuddered when he realized that this was the first time his brother had called the engineer by his given name. "Not like this," Loki continued softly. "Believe me, I would if I could but my magic is almost spent and Nemesis is coming and—"

"Wait, Nemesis?" Steve cut in. "But you said the seventh stone didn't—"

"It does exist, alright? I told you I wasn't sure to provoke you into action!" Loki shrieked.

"And what a tremendous idea it was to make such a hasty departure without talking this through!" Valkyrie screamed. "Look at the mess you—"

" _This_ mess is not my fault!" Loki screamed hysterically as he jabbed his finger into her chest. "None of this is. You were in the room when I tried to warn them how dangerous the Infinity Stones were. Is it my fault that Stark chose to _ignore_ every single one of my warnings? I think _not_ and I refuse to tolerate your disrespect any longer, you pathetic drunkard! In case you forgot, I am the brother of your _king_!"

Steve stepped between them. "Whoa, let's not go _there_ , okay?"

Valkyrie grinded her teeth and Loki narrowed his eyes at her, exhaling a heavy breath. "Summon it, brother."

Thor gulped. "You do recall what happened the last time you called for Heimdall to open the bridge to us too soon?" he asked warily. "If I summon the Bifrost now, we're gonna take all of this"—he vaguely indicated the water—"with us to New York."

"That is a risk we will have to take, I'm afraid," Loki decided before anyone else had a chance to voice an objection and _how could they voice objections anyway_ , thought Thor. _They are shell-shocked and scared and beyond exhausted_. _Which is exactly why I shouldn't_ —

Steve glanced down at Tony, who was only half-conscious, and gave a terse nod. "Do it."

"Just a minute," Thor muttered as his mind suddenly presented him with a possibility to circumvent the worst possible scenario. With all his might, he rammed his axe into the ground on sheer impulse, causing a rift in the ice. He whirled around and rammed the Stormbreaker into the ice once more. Semi-oblivious of the sheer panic screaming at him from his friends' eyes; of Tony's stifled moans of pain; of Loki's heavy breathing, he swung around frantically, ramming the Stormbreaker into the ice again and again and again until they were floating on the water on an ice floe about fifty feet in diameter, removed from the rest of the plateau. This accomplished, he raised his axe over his head and called out, "Are you sure you want me to do this?"

"Are _you_ sure we're gonna survive another journey on the Bifrost?" Clint panted.

"We mustn't lose hope that you are," Loki said listlessly and Thor could not tell whether this was a morbid jest or not. When no more objections came, he called upon the magic rays of the Rainbow Bridge. Even though he did not think it wise to do so— _It is going to tear them apart, for the love of the Realm Eternal!_ —Thor had lost all trust in himself. For a while now, his decisions had brought about nothing but destruction and despair. He had just unleashed the wrath of the Soul Stone and, possibly, Nemesis upon them in order to save a man whom he had probably condemned to death himself with his selfish actions anyway. _You are unworthy_ , his father's harsh, unforgiving words echoed through his skull, _of the loved ones you have betrayed!_

"Wait, aren't we supposed to hold _hands_?!"

Thor was not entirely sure who had screamed this and _what does it matter anyway_ , he thought grimly, _because you are too physically exhausted to hold on to each other and we are doomed, doomed, doomed_. _Everything is coming apart_. _I have failed you all_. _The Norns have made their decision_ _apparently_ , his mind continued its horrid chant, but, curiously, even that realization failed to matter to Thor because _even if this is the end of the universe that we all call our home, at least we managed to kill Thanos before it perished and if that certainty isn't something to cherish in our final moments, I don't know what is_. Before he could grasp any other thought, however, the light of the rainbow enveloped him and anyone else around him, dulling all of Thor's senses as the sheer power of the Bifrost swept him away, hurtling him through time and space until he landed on his back with a soft thud, the Stormbreaker still clasped in his clammy hands.


	33. We all made mistakes

#33

Thor jolted into a sitting position and supported his body with his elbows, his vision still blurry with exhaustion. The first thing that registered with him when the dizziness behind his eyes began to slowly subside was that the Midgardian air remained, at least for now, untouched by the vicious magic he had sensed on Hélgidomur. The next thing he realized was that his hectically devised precautionary measure had seemingly worked, for he was half-sitting, half-lying on the floe he had chopped off the ice plateau his brother had created. His gaze flitted to Loki, who had apparently donned the Infinity Gauntlet during their voyage on the Bifrost and was now wearing it on his right hand. Even if the prospect of his little brother wielding the same power that had condemned so many innocent beings to death stirred up unwanted feelings of doubt and distrust in his stomach, it also gave Thor a brief moment of satisfaction. Unfortunately, it did not last very long, for, as he had predicted, all the water Loki had summoned came roaring after them in angry splashes.

"Loki!" shouted Thor, even though the roar of his brother's name was more of a reflex rather than an actual directive.

"On it," Loki replied so faintly that, for a fraction of a second, Thor was unsure whether his brother had actually spoken but then Loki raised the Infinity Gauntlet skywards and the Time Stone started flickering in the faintest sheen of green, slowing down the water cascading down on the Avengers lawn. Yet with the stone's powers almost depleted, Loki's presumable attempt to halt the water entirely came to naught and so Thor watched in suspense as the water and several Chitauri corpses inside it dripped from the opening of the Rainbow Bridge in slow motion. Their grimaces, Thor noted with both satisfaction and unease, were still articulating the horror they had felt upon their sudden deaths.

"Why is it not _closing_ ," Loki murmured in a voice slurred with fatigue, his eyelids flickering with exhaustion.

It was only then that Thor remembered that Heimdall was no more and that _he_ was in command of the Bifrost now; that _he_ was the one who had to close it. He willed the Stormbreaker to do so but Loki was already raising his ungloved hand into the air in a slow, clumsy movement even though he still lay on his back. The last spark of his Jotun magic froze the waterfall descending upon them into pillars of ice while the glimmering light of the Rainbow Bridge was slowly fading from the sky.

Loki moaned softly and then his eyes closed. Thor scrambled over to him, shook his shoulders and shouted his brother's name but Loki gave no response.

From somewhere behind him, he heard a breathless "fuck" from Valkyrie. Thor swung around and saw how she heaved herself up and crawled over to the others, who, except for Nebula and Steve, were all lying unconscious on the lawn, their limbs eerily sprawled out in all directions.

Thor gulped as long forgotten words broke through the door of his conscious mind with the force of a battling ram. _You are a Destroyer, Odinson_. _See where your power leads_. _They see you leading us to Hel_. _We are all dead_. _Can you not see?_

 _All the Realms be fucking_ _ **damned**_ , he thought again before he scrambled to his feet to help the friends he had so recklessly put in danger, the faint light of the first sunrays filtering through the black of the night.

* * *

Worlds away, the Goddess of Death was sitting on her accursed throne in her accursed cold, stonewalled kingdom, which was hidden deep in the merciless icescape of Niflheim. She had her fingers closed around the black gem, the sight of which had so delightfully dismayed Thor when he had broken into her domain to bargain for the life of that maniacal giant he called brother, and could feel it pulsating against her skin. It was brimming with magical energy and Hela knew that it was crying out in voiceless agony. To whom, however, she was not entirely certain.

Thor had been foolish enough to assume that she knew nothing of the stone's significance and Hela cackled at the recollection. What a simpleton he was, the God of Thunder, with his foolish grin and that near blinding spark of credulity in his eyes. He knew nothing of either Odin's schemes or the ferocity that had burned inside the Allfather's chest until he had finally met his doom on the coast where the descendants of his worshippers had once dwelled. Thor would have tried to wrench the stone from her if his naïve endeavor to bring back the one person who had brought him nothing but sorrow for the past years had not distracted him.

She snorted once more. Thor was reckless and impulsive. He had obliterated the Realm Eternal without hesitation, singing the magical branches of Yggdrasil and dispersing the Odinforce across the universe, without pausing to think that he would challenge the most grueling creatures that resided among the stars to battle by burning Asgard to the ground.

As if aware of her thoughts, the gem's pulsation increased, and Hela could feel its magic against her skin, could feel it electrifying her like miniature lightning blasts.

Thor had believed that the destruction of Asgard was all there was to Ragnarok but Hela knew more. Hela knew that the gem she was holding in her hands at this very moment was what Odin had kept sealed deep within Asgard for eons because _it_ would cause Ragnarok. It went without saying that Thor, being the trustful imbecile that he was, had been blissfully unaware of the danger still lurking inside of Asgard when he had wreaked havoc upon the Golden City so mindlessly, releasing the destructive energy locked inside this gem from its prison in the process. That she had found it in the midst of the inferno unleashed by the Lord of Fire was a miracle in itself. She had seized the gem just before the fires of Muspelheim had engulfed her and severely torched her body—the body that had, finally, been breathing air again after eons of captivity—until she had seen no choice but to return to the realm of the dead vanquished and weak.

* * *

"What about him?" Steve asked with a downward glance at Loki. He, Thor and Valkyrie had carried the unconscious Avengers to bed one by one after Nebula, too, had succumbed to the physical and emotional strain the past hours had put on even her resilient, technologically enhanced body. They had also called for Wong to chant healing spells and try to find out what had the Soul Stone had done to Tony's mind and if the vicious magic tearing through the air on Hélgidomur earlier was indeed Nemesis coming to reclaim Infinity Stones and what that might mean for their quest to undo the Snap and save the universe from the damage Thanos had inflicted upon it. Yet, even though the sorcerer had immediately answered their call, walking through a portal right onto the Avengers lawn, their requests had been met with reluctance. As Loki had tried to tell them in his typically overbearing fashion earlier, there apparently were limits to the magic that the Masters of the Mystic Arts could wield. Healing spells, Wong had told them almost apologetically, were nothing they could administer easily and the magic of the Soul Stone was the most feared across the galaxy. "No one," he had declared solemnly, "should try to tap rashly into its essence."

"Don't you think this constitutes sort of an emergency?" Valkyrie had asked carefully, but not without a trace of the same Asgardian arrogance in her voice that had resonated with Loki's words earlier that night. Thor shuddered with the realization that it was precisely this arrogance that had prevented Asgard from truly protecting the mortal world as it had once sworn.

"The Masters of the Mystic Arts were taught _not_ to tamper with natural law," Wong replied briskly, "but to defend it. This is how we have kept this planet safe until ..." His voice trailed off as his gaze flitted to Loki, then to the Infinity Gauntlet on his brother's right hand and ultimately to Thor.

"Until we came along," said Thor, his heart still heavy with the recollection of his father's harsh and unforgiving proclamation of his unworthiness all those years ago. "Yeah, I get it."

"Your interference is what caused of all this. If you had not chosen to come to Earth—"

"I never _chose_ to come to Earth," Thor interrupted the sorcerer sourly. "I was banished. If my father had not—"

"Okay, that's enough," Valkyrie cut in. "We are long past the point at which recriminations might have still gotten us anywhere." She fixed the magician with her intense hazel eyes. "What _can_ you do, then? Can't you at least try to heal them?"

"Or maybe try to remove the remaining stones from the gauntlet?" Steve added.

Wong sighed heavily and remained silent for a few breaths before he assured them with visible, almost palpable, reluctance at the prospect of having to tap into the powers of creation that he would try. He carefully removed the Infinity Gauntlet from Loki's wrist, his brows furrowing when he touched Loki's Jotun skin even though his lips remained sealed. Wong then cast a spell and a blanket consisting of glimmering, orange mandalas materialized around Loki, pulsating with Eldritch magic.

"What are you doing?" asked Thor.

"That is a magical shield that is going to protect him against cosmological interference," the sorcerer replied before he strode towards the Avengers compound with Eitri's mighty forging tucked under his arm, Valkyrie and Steve in tow.

When Steve came back outside, the time that had passed had allowed the sun to break through the darkness of the night and cast a soft glow on the lawn that belied the horrors they had witnessed and those that, undoubtedly, still awaited them. Thor was sitting on the ice next to his brother, who was still lying unconscious on the ice in full armor, regaining his strength in that sort of post-magic-wielding slumber Valkyrie had earlier compared to the Odinsleep.

"What about Loki?" Steve repeated quietly.

"It's probably for the best if he stays out here," Thor mumbled absentmindedly. "The ice will sustain him better than the temperatures inside the compound. At least, that's what I think. I don't …" His voice trailed off as his thoughts started to drift, leaving him with no hope that he could catch any of them. A heavy silence crept over them, the only sound a couple of birds chirping somewhere in the distance.

"Any news?" Thor asked in a broken voice when the other man made no move to speak.

"Wong created the same barrier around them to shield them from any magical influence," Steve replied with a nod towards Loki. "But if that is enough to …" His voice trailed off.

"How is he?" Thor whispered, his soul crushing under the weight of the misery he and Loki had unleashed upon Tony and all the other innocent Midgardians in the wake of their mindless struggle for their father's appreciation.

Steve gave an awkward shrug. "He is still unconscious. We can't …" He glanced at Loki. "Wong can't tell."

Thor followed the other man's eyes, his gaze fixing onto his brother's sharp cheekbones that were painfully visible under the thin layer of his blue skin.

"I meant what I said earlier," said Steve, his eyes still on Loki. "Even though his methods were reckless and he's certainly still more than a little crazy, I really think he was trying to help us out there."

Thor felt his lips break into a tiny, exhausted smile. "He was, yes. Thank you, Steve."

Steve tried to smile back but it died on his lips. "Do you think he can help us figure this out, too?"

"I don't know," Thor answered truthfully. "I have … I don't know everything he can do with his magic. I never really … cared."

Steve nodded and even though he did not speak, his pinched expression spoke volumes about the conclusions he was drawing _. Loki knew exactly_ who _he was and what he wanted when he attacked our planet_ , Thor remembered the other man's words. _He might have been under the influence of that scepter but he attacked us because he wanted revenge on_ you _, because he hates you_. _Or are you going to deny that now_?

"Look, I know I could have prevented all of this if I hadn't—"

"We all made mistakes, Thor," Steve interrupted him but he was no longer looking at Loki. The captain had directed his gaze inwardly, focusing a distant, or not so distant, past that remained out of Thor's reach. The Thundergod had not been there when the Avengers had broken their bond of fellowship but he had come to know what had transpired and he could see now that Steve was still blaming himself that he and Tony had stood divided during the titan's attack.

"And neither of us will fix them by brooding," Thor mumbled. He looked up at Steve, forcing a sympathetic smile onto his lips. "You should really get some rest."

"So should you," said Steve.

"I will," Thor replied even though he knew that he would not.

* * *

Fretting at her defeat, Hela had told herself that, at least, the gem was now safe in Niflheim. It had been crackling faintly ever since she had taken it with her but the energy emitting from the stone had been no cause for concern. Quite, the contrary. It had brought her Loki and his deliciously agonizing delusions, which had fueled her depleted strength after Surtur's fires had drained her almost entirely, and she had allowed herself to think that she would be able to keep the stone locked inside her kingdom to impede Ragnarok for many eons to come.

Until the Thundergod had made his entrance.

Hela had not believed Thor for one second when he had promised her Loki's return to the kingdom of the dead at his own hands but she had been willing to let him try whatever it was her dimwitted half-brother had planned to do. In fact, she had been looking forward in childish glee to the moment when she would rise from her lair, confront him with his bargain and then claim Thor's soul and that of one of the pathetic mortals he called friends after he had failed to take his deviant little brother's life in time. She had gone near dizzy with excitement at the mere thought of carrying both of Odin's son's souls back to Niflheim to feast on their conflicted emotions for one another forevermore. At least, she had looked forward to this for the past two days.

Now that she could feel the gem's magic desperately reaching out to some unknown force, crackling ever more fiercely inside her palm, Hela would not stand idly by as her useless half-brother continued what he had started, bringing the destruction of all creation down upon them all. She rose from her throne, summoning all her strength until small flashes of green and black exploded from her fingertips with a soft crackle. Moving her hand in a circular motion, she created a magical ring, its edges pulsating with the dark colors of her glamor.

* * *

Steve nodded with one last unreadable glance at Loki before he turned away and strode towards the glass doors leading into the Avengers facility. Thor propped up his legs and looped his arms around his knees in order to ponder his next moves regarding Nemesis, Hela and that accursed seventh stone when he sensed Valkyrie tiptoe towards him. He heaved an involuntary sigh before he looked up at her. She was standing on the lawn in a loosely fitting white shirt and tight black trousers, her long brown curls framing her flawless face, her fingers curled around a newly filled glass of Tony Stark's whiskey. Bathed in the fresh sunlight of the inappropriately beautiful morning, she looked like the almost-goddess that she was. She smiled at him but he could see that it was not reaching her eyes.

"We _are_ done," Thor decided before the appreciation of her beauty could distract him from the anger he felt at the recollection of how she had so easily unleashed her fury upon Loki on Hélgidomur once more even after his brother had done everything in his might to kill Thanos and put an end to their collective nightmare.

"That seems a little rash, don't you think?" Valkyrie asked carefully as she slid down beside him.

Thor laughed tonelessly. "No, I don't think so." He drew a deep breath before he asked the only question that truly mattered to him at this moment. "How could I ever be with someone who hates my brother so much?"

Valkyrie exhaled audibly, her eyes landing on Loki's sleeping frame. "You're really going to make this about _him_?"

"What did he ever do to you, Brunnhilde?" Thor asked, consciously opting for the name she had decided she would no longer go by and drawing a gleeful pleasure from her subtle recoil. "Why do you hate him so much?"

"He's a giant, Thor."

"Yeah, I know," he replied sullenly.

"No, you _don't_! Don't think I can see how you try your very best to ignore it most of the time," Valkyrie snapped and the truth of her words cut right through him. "And if you do acknowledge it, you turn a blind eye to his nature because you are such a trusting fool. Giants are born from chaos, Thor. They're bound to deceit and destruc—"

"Let me stop you right there, okay?" Thor grunted, anger rising inside his chest. "I know you hate Odin with a norndamned passion and I suppose you have every right to but are you truly not aware that it was _his_ tales that instilled in you the judgment you pass on to Loki right now?"

Valkyrie's eyes narrowed but she said nothing.

"It was my father's tales that made all the Asgardians believe that the Jotuns were monsters!" Thor shouted, feeling anger at both her and himself for still feeling so at unease in the presence of Loki's Jotun form. "We grew up with the belief that they were lesser beings but, if I have learned anything on this planet, it is this: That is _racist_. You are a racist. No one should think themselves above someone else based upon appearance or race."

"Racist," Valkyrie repeated. She huffed a laugh, brought her glass to her lips and took a long drink. "You forget something there, Thor. _You_ might have grown up with nothing but tales. _I_ have grown up battling the giants. I have seen what they are capable of. I have seen them slay countless Asgardians in cold blood. I have seen them pursue—"

"That was long before Loki was even born! He was not involved in any of the battles you currently recall. He never marched upon Asgard. Not to mention that Asgard did the very same thing the Jotuns did!" Thor roared. "Odin did the _very same thing_. We are _not_ above them, none of us! Loki is not less trustworthy than you are _simply because_ he is a giant!" He drew a deep breath, trying in vain to control his fury. "And how can you even _think_ about condemning him for his actions when you gave allegiance to a tyrant and helped him enslave people he later murdered for sport? You are a _Valkyrie_ , for the sake of all the Realms!"

She startled and her mouth gaped open.

"And since you clearly aren't a giant, what actual excuse do _you_ have for your transgressions against Asgardian morality, huh?" Thor snapped, relishing in her consternation even though he did not want to and did not understood why exactly he was taking all his frustration and anger out on her.

Valkyrie hissed a sharp laugh as she shot to her feet. "At least I didn't sleep with that tyrant!"

Now, it was Thor's turn to startle. He had asked himself what had happened between the Grandmaster and his brother as soon as he had caught onto the lustful gaze in the Elder's eye. "Wh-what do you mean?" he stammered, unsure if he could handle the answer.

Valkyrie sneered at him. "You know exactly what I mean but you are so far up your brother's ass that you—"

"What?" Thor asked when she stopped mid-sentence, her facial muscles straining.

Valkyrie gulped and he was just about to ask her again what was wrong when he suddenly sensed the faint trace of magic in the air. He searched for her gaze and clearly saw the truth in her eyes even before she spoke a single word, her voice taking on a nervous edge.

"Hela."


	34. You don't have what it takes to be a God

#34

Thor was on his feet in an instant, his heart threatening to leap up his throat and out of his mouth. The only thing he could think of was the same frantic thought he had clung to earlier. _Wh-what? Why is she coming now? I still have_ _ **time**_ _!_ The conversation they had just had seemingly forgotten, Valkyrie drew closer to him and thereby not only signaled her loyalty to him but also shielded Loki from whatever threat was looming ahead. She even reached for Thor's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze that reaffirmed the affection she had for him despite their discords. Thor inhaled deeply as he recalled the first time he had laid eyes on his sister on the coast of Norway and how he and Loki had immediately joined forces against her in some sort of silent agreement even though Thor had been ready to claw his brother's eyes out for causing Odin's death only moments earlier. It was a peculiar kind of déjà-vu that was both incredibly soothing and deeply unsettling.

Valkyrie gulped once more, reminding him once again of what she had lost to Hela.

"Is she here?" Thor asked, his voice almost failing him as he shot frantic glances around him. _This cannot be how this all ends_. _I cannot have made such a mess of things_. _I am supposed to be the protector of these Realms! I am supposed to—_

"I don't know," Valkyrie whispered. "But her magic … Can't you feel her magic?"

"I can," Thor admitted. "But are you sure it's _her_ magic? Or is it Nemesis?"

"I'm still not sure if I know who Nemesis is, exactly," Valkyrie replied softly. Her eyes too were sweeping over the Avengers lawn, her every muscle strained as if she were a lioness on the prowl.

"She is controlling everything," Thor replied, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them. "She called out to me in my dream. It wasn't Loki. He never called to me for help … It was Nemesis. She is … I felt her magic on Hélgidomur and I realized that it was the same magic that reached out to me when I thought I'd heard Loki and … this is somehow all her doing and I …" His voice broke and he could feel his chest tightening once more, squeezing the air from his lungs. His vision went blurry, his tongue started to throb and then his throat and mouth went numb.

"What?" Valkyrie whispered.

"I-I … messed up," Thor conceded in a small voice, a stab of sharp panic jolting through his body. Everything was falling apart around him and the pressure on his chest became so unbearable that he was sure he was going to suffocate.

"Now that's unprecedented," Valkyrie scoffed but ceased her taunts instantly when she looked at him and saw the distress in his eyes. Her voice softening, she whispered, "What did you do?"

"I swore an oath to her," Thor answered and despite the fact that he feared her judgment—feared everybody's judgment—he was glad that he could finally relieve himself of the burden he had placed upon his shoulders. "It was reckless and stupid but I figured that I would find a way to get out of it and that I would—"

"Have you forgotten that an oath sworn by a God is binding?" Valkyrie asked, echoing the ancient laws of Asgard, and the look she gave him made it more than clear that she was calling his sanity into question.

"No but I … I had enough time and I thought that Loki would be able to concoct a scheme to get me out of it but then the Infinity Stones happened and everything went to Hel and I … It's only been three days, Val!" He tried to swallow but the tightness in his chest and the numbness in his mouth made it almost impossible to force some saliva down his throat. "How much can go wrong in three days?" Thor cried out, his voice reminiscent of a child's pathetically helpless wail.

"Thor," Valkyrie whispered, her eyes suddenly flaring with alarm. "She is watching us."

"How very astute of you, Brunnhilde," Thor heard the honeyed voice of his murderous half-sister purr even before a spectral apparition of Hela took shape in front of them, materializing from a black-greenish mist. She was clad entirely in black and flashed them a vicious smile as she stepped forth, unruly, greasy strands of black hair framing a face as fair as polished alabaster. She fixated Valkyrie with her ice blue, smoky eyes. Next to Thor, Valkyrie gasped and then narrowed her eyes at the malicious being that had taken everything from her. _How in all the Realms could I have ever chided her for Sakaar?_ Thor thought desperately, his thoughts escaping in all directions. _Why did I ever—_

"I have to say," Hela began as her gaze traveled from Valkyrie to Thor, "I am disappointed in you, _brother_. I will not pretend that I did not see this coming—I knew you were never going to kill him—but I am disappointed nonetheless. The Norns once prophesied you to become the greatest of all the Aesir and who would have ever thought that the _Norns_ could err?" She cackled and every ounce of blood in Thor's body seemed to freeze at the sound. "I certainly believed in them, as I think we all did, but when I look at you now, cowering beneath my feet like a wounded animal, I seriously doubt their judgment. I mean, look at you. Just _look_ at you, Thor! You do not have what it takes to be a God. You do not have what it takes to be a King of Asgard. You barely have what it takes to be a man. The only thing that sets you apart from all the powerful Gods you walked amongst," she continued with a disparaging glance at Loki, "is the ludicrous soft spot for the abomination lying at your feet." Hela snorted once more. "And despite everything he put you through, despite everything you endured because of him, you choose to remain blissfully unaware that your affection for this sleazebag is what brought you to this point and that your loyalty to him is also what is going to ruin _everything_ else for you in the future. And not only for you."

Next to Thor, Valkyrie's face was twisting into a grimace of involuntary concession.

"See?" Hela chirped cheerfully, her spectral hand landing on Valkyrie's shoulders. "Even Brunnhilde agrees with me."

Valkyrie's face darkened. She tried to slap Hela's hand away but her fingers went right through the projection. "What do you want?" she enquired grimly.

Hela's apparition threw back its head and laughed devilishly. "What do I _want_? You are enraging the very magic that is keeping us all alive. You are—"

"And you aren't?" Thor cut in as he straightened as much as his tight chest would allow him. "You cannot hope to control the stone you carry. It carries the conscience of all creation and you are no match for it."

Hela gave a bright laugh. "And after all your failures you think you are?"

"That isn't the point," Thor mumbled.

"Wherever you go, you leave destruction in your wake," Hela spat. "You will be the downfall of everything you care about!"

"Now, that's rich coming from the Goddess of _Death_ ," Valkyrie pointed out sourly.

Hela smiled at the other woman, her eyes flickering with rogue blitheness. "I court death, yes, crave it even. It is in my nature, after all. Yet, despite my appetites, I have _never_ craved the destruction of the _entire_ universe. I am no fool. If the universe were to perish, none of us would continue to exist." She fixated Thor with her cold stare once more. "If I had been able to foresee that you would try to disrupt the order of the universe with Loki's help, I would never have given you a month's time. Do you not _see_ what you are doing? Do you really think you of all people will be able to right an intergalactic wrong?"

Thor opened his mouth to speak but Hela's vicious chuckle silenced him instantly.

" _Your_ tampering with the Infinity Stones is going to bring forth Ragnarok," Hela spat. "The _real_ Ragnarok. Not the destruction of Asgard you foolishly assumed to be the extent to the prophecy." Her heavily painted eyes narrowed to slits. "If I have learned anything since our paths have so unfortunately crossed, it is this: You cannot be left unsupervised."

Thor swallowed when he remembered Bruce's words. _If there's any moral to your little history lesson, it's probably that Asgardians, Gods or not, are better not left unsupervised_. He glanced at Loki, who was still resting on the ice floe beneath the protective shield created by Wong, his chest barely moving with his shallow breathing. He remembered his father's words to him— _Through your arrogance and stupidity, you have opened these peaceful realms and innocent lives to the horror and desolation of_ _ **war**_ —and his words to Loki during his brother's trial, which Thor had only witnessed from afar— _Wherever you go there is war, ruin and death_. Thor tried to swallow once again and, once again, it was in vain. His entire body remained so taut that his skin began to hurt with the every effort to stay focused.

"Which is why," Hela continued with a deathly sweet smile that barely registered with him, "I see no choice but to revise the terms of our bargain."

Valkyrie tensed beside him and there were so many thoughts assailing him that Thor could not hope to grasp a single one of them. His chest was still so very tight and his breath was coming in such frantic gasps that he feared he would drop dead any time now, slumping to the ground beneath his sister's feet like the pathetic loser that he was.

"I will not let you risk the fate of all the Realms any longer. You have twenty-four more hours to bring Loki _and_ the glove to me in Niflheim. If you fail to do what was promised, I will come back here and claim the souls of _all_ your mortal friends." She smiled pleasantly. "And you both know that you cannot defeat me without the Lord of Fire by your side. Have I made my terms clear?"

"An oath given to one God by another is binding," Valkyrie stepped in before Thor could rashly agree to anything. "You cannot just barge in here and revise the terms of the bargain you made with him!"

"Oh, can't I?" Hela purred, another devious smile breaking her lips apart. She raised her spectral hand and as soon as her black magic began to sizzle around her fingertips, Loki gave a soft moan of pain in his sleep.

Thor's heart gave a lurch and Valkyrie swung around, her eyes landing on the protective barrier. "How is that …"

Her voice faded from his ears as Thor was sensing a subtle wave of magic pulsating between the air molecules, stabbing into his head like a migraine. _Help me …_

Hela's gruesome laugh echoed through the morning air, drowning out the faint murmur of ancient magic. "In case you inconsequential morons forgot, I am the Goddess of _Death_. Loki only walks among the living once more because I allowed it. Yet, until the bargain is fulfilled, his soul remains mine to command, and I gazed deeply into its abyss. I can make him relive his greatest nightmares anytime I choose." She flicked her translucent fingers with a feral glint in her spectral eyes and Loki's face convulsed in a grimace of pain.

Valkyrie's lips parted.

"Stop it!" Thor howled, a thousand thoughts forming in his mind but immediately dissolving again before he could get a hold of any of them. The magic started throbbing through his head more violently, nearly setting his brain on fire. _You must free me and you must make haste, Odinson, or else the universe will soon bear the full damage of your father's passing_.

"You want me to stop?" Hela asked with an eerily predatorily smile on her face. "Then you will agree once more."

 _Nemesis?_ Thor asked inwardly. Curiously, even his inner voice was trembling desperately when he asked the same of the ominous being that it had asked of him. _Help me …_

 _I cannot help you unless you free me_ , came the reply. _Make haste!_

"Twenty-four hours," Hela repeated, locking eyes with Thor. "Or else everyone you care about will forever be at my mercy." She balled her illusionary fingers into an illusionary fist and Loki, eyes still closed, yelped in terror. "Do you agree, _brother_?"

"I—" Thor's throat was so tight that he could not utter a single word more. Everything he had decided upon recently had only brought more misery, more destruction, and more pain upon those he loved. How could he possibly trust himself to make another decision? How could he possibly condition everything on Loki's well-being again when there seemingly was _so_ much more at stake than he had been able to fathom until now? How could he possibly—

Loki groaned out in pain once more.

"We agree," Valkyrie suddenly declared. Thor shot her a frantic glance and saw that her jaws were clenched tightly.

Hela's illusion smiled at her before her spectral head jerked in Thor's direction. "You know I have to hear it from him."

Thor glanced at Valkyrie for her final approval and when she gave a hesitant nod, he too agreed, his voice nothing more than a faint, broken whisper.

Hela chuckled. "I can't hear you."

"I agree," repeated Thor, his intestines clenched in fierce agony.

"Good. Then I will see you soon, _brother_." The Goddess of Death flashed them both another vicious smile before her apparition dissolved in front of their eyes.

"What the," Valkyrie was murmuring but the racing heartbeat thudding inside Thor's ears drowned out her words as he rushed to his brother's side. He stretched out his hand but as soon as his fingertips touched the protective barrier, his skin started to corrode and he flinched back.

Valkyrie exhaled a heavy breath and an eerie silence crept over them.

"W-why did you," Thor began when it became clear to him that she would not speak. "Why did you agree?"

"Why did _you_?" Valkyrie asked back, her voice vibrating with both disappointment and disbelief. "If I understood correctly, you swore an oath to kill your own brother in order to free him from the claws of death? How paradoxical is that? _What_ in all the Realms were you _thin_ king?"

"I …" Thor felt as if everything that had, if only barely, cohered the single parts of his existence until then was suddenly coming apart and he slumped to the ground, a violent sob tearing through his chest. Tears started to spill out of his eyes. "I-I don't know but Nemesis … She wants me to … She told me to … Hela isn't … Maybe we still …" He greedily gulped for another breath but his throat was still too tight.

Valkyrie slid down beside him and squeezed his hand. "Hey, you need to calm down, okay?" she whispered and he could hear the fear and desperation in her voice.

"You know, I-I once saw this woman on TV," Thor told her when the recollection hit him out of nowhere, "who t-talked about how she'd tried to commit suicide because she ha-hadn't seen a way out. And I remember how I w-watched her and thought how stupid this was. I remember that I thought, 'What are you talking about? There is _always_ a way out. There is _always_ something you can do.' But … wh-what if there isn't? What i-if you really hit a dead end and there's _really_ nothing you can do and e-everything is just doomed to fail and you can't possibly i-imagine that—"

"Hey, hey, hey," Valkyrie said softly as she cupped his face between her palms, concern flickering across her eyes. "Thor, please."

"Hela is right," Thor gasped out. "I have nothing t-to show for myself. I brought nothing but—"

"Shhshh," Valkyrie murmured, her fingers tracing across his cheek. "Everything's going to work out fine."

Thor barked a desperate laugh. "This is e-exactly what I said to Loki before Thanos attacked us and look where we are now. Just _look_ what I—"

"We still have twenty-four hours," Valkyrie said with such confidence that the tightness in his chest began to release its hold a little at last. "We will think of something, okay?"

The Thundergod nodded and silence swathed them once again.

"Why did you agree?" Thor repeated when he could finally draw his breath again. "You made it clear only moments ago just how much you disapprove of him. Why would you risk the lives of all our friends to …" His voice trailed off, words still eluding him.

"I don't know," Valkyrie replied tonelessly. She turned her head, fixing her gaze on Loki. "I always thought his act was nothing but a giant scam—no pun intended—but there is probably more to him than I ever cared to imagine. And I know what it is like to be bedeviled by Hela's machinations and I …" Tears started glistering in her eyes and she squeezed them shut to keep them from spilling. She cleared her throat before she continued with, "You are a good person, Thor—a hopeless fool, yes, but a _good person_ —and if you still believe in your brother and think that he might be able to cheat Hela out of her bargain, well, maybe you are right."

Thor searched for her eyes. "D-do you really think that?"

Valkyrie looked at Loki again and the shadow of a reluctant half-smile tugged at the corners of her lips. "Let's face it," she whispered with an unmistakable edge of long suppressed pain in her voice. "It's not as if we could ever hope to defeat Hela and reclaim Nemesis with the strength of our powers alone. She proved that to us more than once and, even though I will not pretend that I have any genuine affection to spare for Loki as of now, I just realized that if anyone can vanquish the Goddess of Death by something other than physical force, it _has_ to be the God of Mischief. Because I, for one, am at my wit's end when it comes to that bloody-minded hag."

Thor smiled through the tears streaming down his cheeks.

"Come here," Valkyrie said and pulled him into a hug. "I promise you everything will turn out fine but you need to rest first, okay? Everyone is asleep right now and you need it just as much as they do, if not more."

"We need to tell them though," Thor whispered, a new wave of dread washing over him. " _I_ need to tell them what I did; how I betrayed them so that Loki could live."

"Yes," Valkyrie conceded softly. "But not before you …" She startled when an exasperated crackling noise came from behind them. Thor squirmed himself out of Valkyrie's embrace and they both turned around to watch countless magical veins of sanguine color pulsate to life inside the protective shield created by the last remaining Master of the Mystic Arts. The waves swirled around Loki's helmet and armor and his skin paled from blue to white.

Valkyrie drew a breath to speak but before she could utter a single word, Loki's eyes snapped wide open.


	35. Would you like to see some real magic?

**Everyone who knows me will have guessed as much, but I simply couldn't resist including a description of what Hela made Loki relive and I put this warning here just in case because we all know what his greatest nightmare is ... That said, enjoy!**

* * *

#35

Loki did not know whether he was dreaming as a murmur of different voices filtered into his subconscious and different scenes blurred into one another in his mind's eye. He saw Thor shaking Captain America's hand, relieved smiles on both men's faces. _I really think he was trying to help us out there_. He then saw Valkyrie's face, lips pinched in disgust. _He's a giant, Thor_. He saw his brother and the hot anger flashing in his eyes. _And you are a racist_. Loki felt oddly at peace for a moment before, all of a sudden, a black cloud with single wisps of pale turquoise wavered through the air. The air stilled around him and Thor's face morphed into a horrific Odin-Thanos grimace with blistered purple skin and an eyepatch of phalanges that came closer to him, its dark violet lips hanging open, a black, slimy tongue sticking out. Loki tried to squirm away but the ferocious glint in the face's one eye fixed him in place.

 _You think you are free of me now just because I am dead?_ The creature growled. _You think you can escape me? I am inevitable_.

Loki cried out for help but all that came out instead of the scream that had been building up inside his chest was a muffled groan.

 _You think you can escape what you did?_ The one-eyed purple creature howled a deep, horrid, bone-shattering laugh. _Wherever you go, you leave destruction in your wake_ , _Loki_ , it continued, its voice mind-bogglingly turning into Hela's smooth evil purr. _You will be the downfall of everything you care about_. _Need I remind you?_

Hela? What was Hela doing here, in this dream? And was this a dream, after all?

Before Loki had time to dwell on these questions, the nightmarish abomination opened its mouth, threw back its head and retched until it regurgitated a putrescent body with long, light-brown hair, dripping with dark-green, almost-black mucus, which it spat at Loki's feet.

Loki shrieked but, once more, no real sound came out. He knew then that it was a dream. It had to be. Knowing that no real harm could come to him in dream, he bent over and reached out to the ghastly corpse with trembling hands, anxiously touching the thin fabric of the light blue dress that still clung to the body in shreds. Even though it felt grimy against his touch, he recognized its texture and he felt his face convulsing into a grimace of pain. _No, no, no!_ Loki sniveled and then took a deep breath before he removed the hair that was covering the corpse's face, his pulse thudding in his ears. Another voiceless scream escaped his lips when he stared into Frigga's festering face and her cold, dead eyes.

 _Mother_ , he whimpered, scrambling backwards as little snakes creeped out of her eyes, sneaking down her face and leaving a thin trail of a black slime on her cheeks. _Nooooooo! I am so sorry, Mama, I never meant to hurt you_.

Frigga's lips parted, her tongue lolling out, but she remained silent. The horrid creature's laugh boomed through the darkness but when the bloodcurdling noise faded, Loki heard someone softly calling his name from very far away.

 _Lokeeeeeeee_. The voice was familiar, even though he could not quite place it. _Lokeeeeeee! Wake up!_

The voice was right. Both the creature and the corpse were not real. Frigga and Odin were safe, reunited peacefully in Valhalla at last after all the misery their sons had brought upon them during their desperate, misguided endeavors to prove their worth to Asgard. And Thanos was dead too, his minions drowned, electrocuted and frozen into unmeltable Jotun ice. Loki's worst nightmare had ended a few hours ago. He just needed to wake up. His mind was eager to comply and escape this place but his body was stubbornly holding on to the much-needed sleep. Still, his eyelids fluttered and the horrid images began to fade away.

 _That's right_ , the voice said. _Wake up._

 _I_ _ **am**_ _waking up_ , Loki grumbled, when his befuddled mind finally recognized Reality's voice.

 _Wake up quicker_ , she continued her merciless demands. _Mind is a fool to be believe that Nemesis is coming to free us_. _Nemesis will be our death_. _If we are ever reunited with her, we will perish_ _and, if we do, so will everything_. _You must prevent that_.

 _I must nothing_ , Loki wanted to reply. All he wanted was to sleep for at least fifty more hours now that Thanos was finally dead and they had all the stones in their possession but he had absorbed the Aether into himself by choice and he knew that he could not hope to close his mind against her magical interferences. Which is why he relented, asking, _But she is coming, is she not? Nemesis?_

 _She is trying, ye_ s.

 _What does she want?_ Loki paused thoughtfully. _Does she want to be reborn?_

 _Only Yggdrasil itself knows_. Reality drew a breath. _But you have other, more urgent matters to attend to first. Now_ _that you have retrieved the gauntlet, you must quickly separate us_.

Loki's heart sank when he realized what the execution of her command entailed. _Why?_

 _Because that is how we will be able to regain our strength_. _Did you not witness how my powers dwindled as soon as you brought me within the others' reach again? You must free the remaining four and store them as far away as possible from one another, so that each of us can heal_.

Loki still felt the urge to protest but Reality, probably sensing the reluctance owed to his fatigue, suddenly surged through him and jolted his body awake with her magic. Some of his strength returned instantly, his frozen blood turned warm again and then his eyes snapped open.

The first thing he caught sight of was an orange mandala that surrounded him and emitted tiny sparks. _Those accursed Midgardian wizards_ , was the first thought to cross Loki's mind but the barrier dissolved as soon as he propped himself up on his elbows.

"Brother?" Thor was kneeling beside him, his right arm reaching out to touch his shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," Loki panted, not trusting his own voice as he tried to banish the horrible sight of his mother's putrefied corpse into his subconscious. "I am just hungry," he mumbled but then he looked at his brother and the dreadful images of his dream instantly fled his mind. Thor's hair was rumpled and clung to his pale and clammy face. Deep furrows lined his forehead. His lips were trembling and his eyes were drowning in floods of sorrow. "What about you?" Loki whispered, his heart aching at the sight of his once so mighty brother brought so low. "You look terrible."

Thor gave a forced laugh. Loki quickly glanced around and took in the sun inching away from the horizon and into the sky in a soft glow, which told him that at least an hour or two must have passed since he had he had collapsed from exhaustion. Even though Valkyrie had made it more than clear how little she thought of him, he still searched for her eyes in the certainty that they could at least agree upon wanting what was best for Thor. "Did he even sleep?"

Valkyrie snorted. "Of course not."

"There was no time," Thor mumbled but Loki hardly heard it as he remembered Reality's command and glanced down at his hand only to find that the Infinity Gauntlet he had slipped into while his brother had summoned the Bifrost on Hélgidomur was gone. "Wh-where are the stones?" Loki asked, his heart picking up speed as he scanned the garden and realized that the scepter too was gone. _Their magic is only restored when they are apart_. "The Mind Stone, the gauntlet? Where _are_ they?"

"Relax," said Valkyrie, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. "They are inside."

"Wong is trying to remove them from the gauntlet," Thor added. "Wong is one of the wizards," he added when he saw Loki's puzzled expression. "He also did"—and there Thor gestured towards the no-longer-present protective shield conjured from Eldritch magic that had surrounded Loki during his sleep—"well, he tried to … Anyways, Steve told him to remove the stones and he is trying to do that right now, I think. I mean, he said he would try."

Loki's brows drew together in an expression of sympathetic concern at his brother's palpable disquiet.

"Don't look at me like that," Thor whispered, repeating the words Loki had said to him in the deserted Norwegian cabin after he had spent the night reliving his greatest nightmares; which, to Loki, felt like months ago instead of the two or three days that had passed since then. "Don't pity me."

"I won't," Loki promised and, forcing a sleek smile onto his lips, he added, "I will merely take a mischievous pleasure in the fact that you look so much worse when you are in agony than I do."

At this, Thor snorted a genuine laugh. "Not with all that grease in your hair, you don't."

Having achieved his goal of making his brother chuckle, Loki's sleek smile turned sincere. "Alright, let me assist that wizard persona." He rose to his feet and as soon as he stood, his gaze fell upon the pillars of ice that now towered in the middle of the Avengers lawn, several Chitauri corpses hanging upside down in their crystalline prison, their horrified ghoulish grimaces frozen by death. Loki could not stop the giggle from escaping his mouth.

"What?" asked Valkyrie.

"Just look at that. Stark is going to k—" Loki startled when he remembered what had transpired just before their escape. "H-how is he?"

"Still unconscious," Thor replied softly.

Loki gave a hesitant nod. "Maybe I can …"

"Please," said Thor.

Loki nodded once again and strode towards the doors leading into the Avengers compound. If the wizard had already extracted the stones from the gauntlet, there were only a few more things left for him to do before he could finally rest and maybe ingest a decent meal; even though the recollection of the grease-saturated atrocity they had served him earlier dispossessed him of all hope that Midgardians knew what a _decent_ meal was.

Valkyrie and Thor were walking behind him and the way they huddled close together, whispering to each other in guarded intimacy, made Loki's skin crawl. He knew that there was something Thor had not yet told him and he knew too that this something had to do with Hela. He had already surmised that Thor had sworn an oath to the Goddess of Death before they had left to reclaim the stones—not to mention that his brother had not explicitly denied this when he'd promised him he would tell him everything once Thanos was dead—but now that Thor looked so visibly harrowed and Hela's of all voices had assailed him in this peculiar nightmare, he was more skeptical than ever. Besides, being the divine authority on secrets and lies and everything in between, Loki also sensed very clearly that Valkyrie knew about whatever it was that Thor was keeping from him and the realization ailed him more than he cared to admit.

 _We will find out_ , his inner voice assured him as he entered the Avengers compound through the glass doors. _Who could ever hope to keep a lie from the God of Lies, after all?_

Loki paid the voice no attention. Instead, he surveyed the kitchenette, the seating area and the laboratory with all its computers, fancy screens and other gadgets that Tony Stark was so proud of but that still seemed at best mediocre to him. The first sight that registered with Loki was Captain America, who was lying on one of the couches, his eyes closed in what looked like an uneasy rest, his hands firmly cupping the elbows of his folded arms. The scepter, Loki saw, was lying next to him. There was no sign of any of the other Avengers except for the wizard named Wong, whom Loki could have easily identified by his robes. The mortal stood bent over one of Stark's surgical tables, the Infinity Gauntlet next to him. He had already extracted Power, Time and Space, who were resting in a shallow cylindrical glass dish next to the glove. The Soul Stone, however, was still faintly glimmering on the Infinity Gauntlet and the wizard was looking at it _,_ his brows furrowed in deep concern.

Thor faked a cough and then announced their arrival with a hoarse "We're back."

Wong startled and glanced up but Loki did not pay him any attention either. He walked right towards the kitchen area, where he opened the fridge and peered inside. It was almost empty except for a few items, which, as he had expected, did not look remotely appetizing. He slammed the door shut again, reached for the crystal fruit bowl on the counter and retrieved a cluster of six bananas, feeling the wizard's uneasy glance on him.

"Wh-what are you doing, brother?" Thor asked, his breathing still heavy. "You said you would—"

"And I will. But I need sustenance first," Loki told him. He peeled the first banana, bit a large piece off and swallowed it without much chewing.

"Will what?" the mortal wizard asked with so much skepticism in his voice that Loki felt his magic crackle with the urge to turn him into a blobfish. "Help Stark," he replied, exercising patience. _I can make this work_ , he told himself. _I can be civil_. "I do not think we have met. I am Loki."

"Yeah, I know." The wizard was trying very hard to keep his voice steady but the apprehension glinting in his eyes was unmistakable and Loki guessed he was right now replaying the footage of his attack on New York City in his mind's eye. _Good_. _Better to be feared than, well, you know_. Nevertheless, the wizard's attitude still irked him.

"Considering that Thanos has finally met his end," Loki said probably a little too cheerfully as he peeled a second banana and fixed his eyes first on Wong, then on Valkyrie and Thor, "I would expect the mood around here to be a little less graveyard-ish."

Valkyrie shot him a _You-have-no-idea_ -sort of glance that sent a shiver of unease crawling down Loki's spine.

"Are you actually _serious_?" asked the wizard. "Your Bifrost nearly killed them all and Tony …" His voice broke. "The Soul Stone scorched his hand down to the bone and no one can even begin to guess what it did to his mind!"

Loki finished the second banana and reached for a third. They left a sticky taste in his mouth but at least they soothed the hunger pangs in his stomach and that was all that mattered for the moment. Even if the Avengers did not know how to prepare food, someone in this nornforsaken Realm surely had to and he would find that someone as soon as he was finished here. "Is that why you have not yet dared to touch it?"

Wong narrowed his eyes at him. "Excuse me?"

Loki gestured towards the cylindrical glass dish on the table. "The other stones are just as powerful and, apparently, you had no qualms about removing _them_."

"The Soul Stone is not like any of the others," the wizard snarled, his apprehension eventually turning into annoyance. _You have only been in here for less than five minutes and he has already had enough of you_. _I dare say this is a new record_. "It is the most dangerous, the most malevolent," Wong continued grimly. "It can manipulate the very essence that makes up an individual. The Tony we knew," he concluded, his voice subsiding into a whisper, "could be gone."

The mortal's words crashed into Loki's stomach with the force of a Rock Giant's fist and he was both surprised at and angry with himself that he had apparently allowed himself to grow fond of the loudmouthed, conceited know-it-all at some point during the time they had spent together. He blew out a soft breath to steady himself. "And what a tremendous loss that would be for this planet."

"Stop with the pretense, brother," Thor chided him, and Loki could almost hear his nerves screaming beneath his skin. "We all know you care."

Loki felt strangely caught, his ears going hot with embarrassment. "There is one other thing we need to do first," he pressed out and reached for his magic. Knowing exactly what their reaction would be, Loki had no desire at all to explain the task the Reality Stone had assigned to him but he told them nonetheless, concluding with, "Which is why I am going to seal them away in separate pocket dimensions so that they can regain their strength."

"Out of the question. I will not give the Time Stone to one such as you," Wong opposed him. "It has been ours to guard for a thousand years!"

Loki drew a sharp, angry breath. Every single time he allowed himself to believe that he had finally proven his worth to those insignificant humans, another self-proclaimed Midgardian hero appeared out of thin air and rubbed his misguided attack against New York into his face, reminding him of his place at the bottom of the moral food chain. Quite naturally, it took only about half a second for his usual self-defense mechanisms to take over. "And what a marvelous job you have done with that since the Ancient One has passed," he sneered.

"Probably about as marvelous as the job you and your brother have done since the Allfather has passed," Wong shot back instantly.

Loki held up his hands in a gesture of mock surrender. "Touché."

"Y-you can keep the Time Stone," Thor suggested, his voice still hoarse and breathy. "We just lock it inside the eye of Agamotto again and Loki seals away the others. Deal?"

"Sounds good," Valkyrie agreed and Loki could hardly believe his ears.

"No," Wong insisted. "We would be lunatics to entrust six weapons powerful enough to wipe out the entire universe to the care of the only person among us who has tried to take over Earth!"

Loki felt his intestines clench. "Don't you have any other arguments?" he asked grimly. "This is really getting old."

"Are you suggesting that you should be their keeper?" asked Thor. "If you have access to pocket dimensions too, by all means, do it, I don't care. I care about Tony. So can we _please_ hurry?"

Wong exhaled. "I am simply suggesting that we do not believe him so easily."

Loki locked eyes with the wizard, reached for the pulse of magic inside of him and murmured, "Well, I apologize."

"For wh—" Wong began but Loki had already raised his clenched fist, magic pulsating in his fingertips, and the mortal turned into a statue of bilious green jello before he could finish his question.

Unexpectedly enough, Thor guffawed but Valkyrie's lips gaped open in consternation. "By Odin's beard," she exclaimed indignantly. "Every time I try to bear with you, you get up to your mischief again."

"What?" Loki flashed her an innocent smile and swiftly opened five pocket dimensions. "I am merely hurrying things along, as requested by our king." Thor looked inappropriately pleased as Loki sealed each of the three stones, the scepter and the gauntlet with the Soul Stone away in separate dimensions, and then lifted the spell he had cast over Wong.

The wizard's face was a grimace of hot, seething anger. "Give them back," he ordered. "You have no idea what you're meddling with!"

"You are a powerful magician," Loki snickered as he grabbed the crystal fruit bowl from the counter and emptied the rest of the fruit, which consisted of two plums and a shriveling orange, onto its top. "Why don't you just take them back?"

He heard Valkyrie and Thor sigh in slight exasperation but Wong accepted the challenge. He brought his hands together, palms almost touching, and sparks of orange flickered to life between them. When the air was humming with Eldritch magic, the mortal spread his arms out and the sparks formed into a glimmering samurai sword. Loki walked over to the sink, where he turned on the faucet and filled the bowl with water, watching intently as the wizard felt for the pocket dimensions' doors and then stabbed the sword into the air when he had identified them. Nothing happened. Loki smirked. "Now that is adorable, isn't it?"

Valkyrie rolled her eyes so far back into her head that Loki was sure he was never going to see her irises again. "You know you would be far more likable if you weren't so insufferably arrogant, right?" she mumbled in unison with the wizard's muffled, "How is that possible?"

Loki gave a casual shrug. "I wield an Infinity Stone."

"And _I_ am a Master of the Mystic Arts," Wong countered. "When you last came to Earth, we—"

"You took me by surprise," Loki interrupted, turning off the faucet. "That is not going to happen again and the stones remain where they are until they are restored."

"Let's see about that!" Wong shouted, wielding his magical sword.

"Stop this at once!" Thor hollered with such force in his voice that Loki startled as the very air inside the compound shook, rattling the glasses on the counter and the devices on the tables. The mortal stiffened as well, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed, and even Valkyrie recoiled. "The stones can wait," ordered Thor, his deep, commanding voice in sharp contrast to his bedraggled appearance. "Our friends' health is way more important, don't you think?"

Wong gave a subdued nod and lowered his weapon. Valkyrie harrumphed, her eyes flickering with uneasy recognition. _Like father, like son_ , Loki could almost hear her think as he carried the bowl from the sink to the counter and placed it carefully onto its top, his hands trembling slightly. He had not performed a spell such as the one was about to perform to heal Tony Stark and the Avengers in almost a century and tapping into rune magic was as complex as it was taxing. There surely were simpler things he could do—extracting the air molecules and transmuting them into the matter of an Asgardian healing stone with Reality's help was something that immediately came to mind—but he would not be Loki if he did not go out of his way to show off one of the only skills he had truly mastered. "Now, would you like to see some _real_ magic?" he asked, sneering at the wizard.

Wong bristled at him and Valkyrie merely rolled her eyes one more time. Thor, however, looked at his younger brother with intent curiosity and admiration for the first time since Loki had begun to learn the art of sorcery.

"Yes, please," Thor said and Loki felt tears clawing at the back of his throat. He swallowed them down and began to chant the runes required for the spell. Thor drew closer to him. Valkyrie held her breath. Wong stepped closer as well, his curiosity overshadowing the anger in his eyes. After a few moments, the water's surface began to tremble with the age-old seið _r_ _._ Then, soft wisps of pale pink and gold wafted into the air, curled above the bowl and exploded into tiny crystals, which fluttered back into the water and turned it magenta.

"Lo and behold," Loki announced in a solemn, dramatizing whisper, "the healing potion of the ancient Norse gods."

Thor's lips were trembling, his eyes filling up with tears. "That is …"

"I know," Loki said softly. The last time he had seen Thor imbibe that potion, Frigga had concocted it for him after he had been severely wounded in battle against a formation of rogue Storm Giants who had marched upon Asgard shortly before his thwarted coronation. "She taught me."

Loki took a ladle out of a jar with kitchen utensils that appeared to sit on the counter unused, scooped up a spoonful of the healing potion and handed it to his brother. "Drink it."

Thor did and shortly after he had swallowed the potion, his strained face smoothened and his eyes cleared up. "This is," he stammered, raising his hands and staring at them in awe. "I … I forgot that this is how I used to feel before this nightmare began." He shouted with glee and then pulled Loki into a hug. Loki struggled against the physical contact but this time, Thor did not let him squirm free. He gave him a tight squeeze, pressing Loki's head against his chest with his muscular arms, murmuring a quiet, "Thank you, brother."

"Now that is _adorable_ , isn't it?" Wong parroted him. "With all due respect to Loki's skills as a magician, wouldn't you think it wise to check if mortals can actually handle that potion the way Asgardians can before you celebrate?"

* * *

 _Author's Note :  
I haven't done one of those in a while, so here it goes: This fic has gained 95 followers and over 60 faves and I want to thank you all so much for your support. If you read the updates regularly (or, well, as regularly as I post them anyway), I would appreciate a review; even if it is just one sentence telling me what you liked (or didn't like, for that matter). If you have followed this to read the fic when it's all done, well, reviews are still nice, even though the story is completed (which this one will be, I swear)._

 _As for the last chapter(s), here are a few comments/thoughts etc. :_ _  
~ This chapter was a little longer than the others and of a significantly slower pace (I am aware) but that is because, as far as Loki is concerned, there is no immediate urgency anymore. Of course, he will be disabused of this notion very soon and I hope you are as excited as I am regarding what is about to come with Thor having to reveal his secret, Hela ready to kick some Asgardian (and Midgardian) ass, Nemesis and the Stones putting bugs in the Odinsons' ears—Should they free Nemesis or shouldn't they? Whom are the Avengers going to believe?—and the Soul Stone having touched Tony's mind._  
 _~ Speaking of Hela, I don't know if her MCU version is capable of sending projections of herself across the realms but in the comics, she is, so I decided to just go with it.  
_ _~ I don't know if Asgardians would actually use the expression "mama"—probably not, I reckon—but it felt more personal and desperate, so I used it anyway._  
 _~ Thor getting a migraine when he senses the magic of Nemesis is a detail I have taken from the Earth's Mightiest Heroes animated_ _TV series_ _where it is revealed that Thor gets a headache whenever he senses ancient magic (such as the Casket of Ancient Winter, for example.).  
_ _~ Of course I couldn't resist to put the "I am inevitable" line somewhere into this either because it sums up Thanos's God complex pretty well. Speaking of lines, and you might have guessed this, the "You look terrible" is a LOTR reference (Legolas says this to Aragorn when he returns to Helm's Deep in The Two Towers)._  
 _~ Seiðr is just a very fancy word for pre-Christian Norse magic.  
_ _~ Last but not least, I am really, really, really enjoying the dynamic between Thor and Loki right now, with both of them being so extremely emotionally fragile at the same time and needing each other more than ever. It's a delight to write, honestly._

 _With that all said, see you soon, I hope._

 _xxx  
_


	36. You have a right to see this

#36

"Sorcerer," Loki corrected the wizard sourly as he wriggled himself out of Thor's embrace. "I am not a magician." Even though he had relished his brother's gesture, he still shot Thor an angry glare for displaying his newfound affection in the presence of witnesses but his brother was entirely unbothered. He was merely smiling that big, sheepish, innocent smile that caused everyone to fall in love with him.

"Whatever," Wong snapped. "Let us get going."

"One second." Loki turned away with a wry smile, helped himself to a spoonful of the potion and waited for the satisfying rush of energy inside of him that would accompany the cellular regeneration of his mangled body. When it came, he could not help but sigh softly with gratification, as one would after savoring a sip of exquisite wine.

Valkyrie extended her hand to him. "My turn."

"You look absolutely fine to me," sneered Loki, seeking to pay her back for all her derogatory comments about his Jotun origin. "Let us save this for those who really need it, shall we? If there is something left, you may have it." Valkyrie bristled at him but Loki paid her no more attention as he glanced at Captain America, whose sleep was apparently a lot less uneasy and restless than his tense posture was making it seem. "So, where do we start?"

Thor looked up, his gaze indicating the floors above them. "Steve is fine. I say we start with the others."

 _With Tony_ , was what he did not say. "Lead the way," Loki commanded. He grabbed the bowl and jerked his head in Wong's direction. "And take some spoons."

The wizard was visibly displeased with being ordered about but he complied nonetheless and so the four of them walked upstairs and towards what Loki guessed were the private, residential quarters of the Avengers compound. He was carrying the bowl with the healing potion in his hands as they entered a corridor that seemed to stretch on forever, sensing Wong's distrust and the secret humming between Thor and the Valkyrie as if someone was stroking the strings of an invisible violin. He glanced at Thor but his brother kept his gaze fixed upon their destination. _Very well_ , Loki thought. _You cannot keep your secret from me forever_.

They walked the length of the corridor that was lined by a couple of doors, one of which led into the room Loki had woken in earlier, and then came to another set of glass doors. Thor wordlessly stalked up to a little screen beside them, pressed his hand upon it and not soon after, the whirr of electricity began to fill the air. "Access granted," said a mechanical voice that Loki recognized as the same voice that had come from within the aircraft when they had made course for New York. _Stark surely thinks highly of himself, does he not?_

The doors opened and when they walked through, Loki found himself in another, even wider corridor with eight doors on either side that led towards an open area with floor-to-ceiling windows at its end. "He really built some sort of palace for the Avengers, huh?" Loki mumbled.

"He did." Thor nodded towards the first door on the right. "In here." He opened the door as carefully and gently as he could, even though the chance that the noise might wake the engineer was slim to none. Out of nowhere, Loki began to wonder if he would ever have a friend who cared about him like Thor cared about Tony Stark and the others, and the thought startled him enough to make the bowl in his hand tremble, the prized healing potion almost spilling over its edges.

He could almost hear the dark voice growl as he followed Thor into Stark's chambers. _This is the basest sentimentality_ ; _this is a child at prayer_. _Pathetic_.

Loki locked his emotions away and focused on Stark instead. He and Pepper were lying next to each other on a bed that the mortals were thinking of as a king-size bed— _as if a king would ever retire to so small a bed_ —and the sparking, light-based Eldritch magic utilized by the Masters of the Mystic Arts had formed an orange-yellowish dome around them. When Wong stepped forth and removed the protection spell, Loki could see that Pepper was still wearing her leather battle suit while they had somehow peeled Stark out of his Iron Man suit. Both were lying on their backs still as stones, the rising and falling of their chests hardly noticeable.

"Alright," said Thor and hesitantly gestured to the bowl. "Should I …"

"And you're really sure about this?" asked Wong.

Loki stared at Tony Stark's right hand, now wrapped in a bandage, and remembered the scorched flesh, the glaringly exposed finger bones. "Yes," he said softly. Even if Midgardian bodies should be unable to absorb the healing potion against all odds, a spell such as this could do no harm by definition.

Thor breathed out to steady himself. Wong handed him a spoon, which Thor filled with the potion and then carried over to Stark's bedside. "How do I," he mumbled, gazing first at the spoon and then at his friend. "How do I make him drink it? He's unconscious. I'm gonna spill it all over him."

"Just open his lips and, you know," said Valkyrie, making a shoving gesture with her hand.

"But that's not gonna make him swallow it." Thor frowned, then glanced up at Loki. "A syringe would be more effective."

"What was I thinking?" Loki muttered. He had always resented the few occasions when his brother had thought of things that he himself had missed and this moment proved to be no exception. Yet, he swallowed that emotion too and conjured a syringe by extracting molecules out of the air and morphing them into matter with the Reality Stone's magic, which materialized next to Stark on the bed.

Thor reached for it without hesitation and filled it with the healing potion in the spoon. Valkyrie went over to the bed to assist him and rolled up the sleeve of Stark's left arm. "Alright," Thor said again and injected the potion into the engineer's veins.

For a few agonizing moments, nothing happened. Valkyrie and Thor held their breaths. Wong tensed beside Loki. Then, Stark gasped, his eyes flying open. He looked at Thor and then jolted into a sitting position. "What happened?" he cried out, his eyes darting across the room. "Why are we back here? Where are the others? Are we—" He stopped when his gaze landed on Loki and the crystal bowl in his hands. "What is that?"

"Everything is fine," said Thor, placing a hand on the other man's shoulders. "We are all back safe and sound." There was a slight edge to his voice but Stark did not seem to notice. "Well, almost. This," Thor gestured to the bowl Loki was clutching, "is an Asgardian healing potion. We will use it to restore everyone's bodies just as we just restored yours. Everyone will be fine."

Loki could hear Valkyrie softly clear her throat but no one else seemed to notice that either.

"Oh my God, Pep," Stark murmured, turning towards the woman lying on her back next to him, still barely breathing. He grabbed her by the shoulders, whispering her name once more. "The Brifrost. It really almost killed us, didn't it?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Thor admitted. "But we can heal her. We can heal everyone." He motioned Loki to come closer and he took a few cautious steps towards the bed, realizing with awe that something inside of him had shifted. He was used to feeling unwanted and rejected but he had never felt any qualms to impose himself on Thor's friends even when, or maybe because, he knew that they would loathe his company. Stepping into Stark's private space like this, however, made him feel more than uncomfortable. Thor rose from the bedside seemingly oblivious, dipped the syringe into the bowl Loki was reluctantly holding out to him and filled it with the potion.

"Wait, you are going to inject this into her veins?" Stark cried out. " _What_ exactly is that?"

"It's a healing potion," Loki repeated, not trusting his own voice to carry. "Our mother used to prepare it for those wounded in battle. Thor injected it into your veins too. How," he began softly, "how are you feeling?"

"Good," Stark mumbled. "I feel …" He glanced down at his bandaged hand and recollection flickered across his features. "What the hell just happened?" he whispered to himself.

"May I?" Thor asked, holding up the syringe for emphasis and nodding in Pepper's direction.

Stark nodded, his gaze still fixed upon his hand. Thor walked over to the other side of the bed, where he injected the potion into the woman's veins right through her suit. She too startled awake after a few seconds. Her mouth gaped open but she said nothing. She merely propped herself up and swept Stark into her arms, murmuring with relief and gratification. Loki turned away, clutching the bowl tighter to his chest as if it could somehow give him reassurance in this strangely uncomfortable situation. Even though Pepper had not asked for clarification, Thor informed her too that she had ingested an ancient healing potion and, watching the mortals huddled together in their unnerving intimacy, Loki suddenly longed to be a million leagues away from them and their crushing emotional hardships. His thoughts drifted off as he, fatuously, yearned for his Asgardian chambers, his armchairs, his books, a cup of mead—well, a barrel, really—and a plate of meat and cheese prepared his mother, decorated with fruits and herbs picked from the garden.

"I thought you said this was a healing spell," Wong's voice pulled him back into the dismal reality in which everything he had once cherished had exploded into dust because he had placed Surtur's skull into the Eternal Flame, chanting the ancient spell. The wizard jerked his head in Stark's direction, who had removed the bandage from his hand, revealing his incinerated hand.

"Why didn't it heal _this_?" asked Pepper and the desperation in her voice made Loki's skin crawl.

 _Shame on you for becoming fond of them_. "Because," Loki said in a solemn whisper, trying to stifle the jealously that he felt because despite everything the Avengers had lost, they still had a home and a family, "what the Soul Stone took away cannot be reclaimed."

"The Soul Stone," Stark mumbled, unspoken agony clouding his gaze. "I heard it. It spoke to me, I …" His voice trailed off and a single tear spilled out of Pepper's left eye.

"Hey, why don't you take a moment to collect yourselves while we go and heal the others?" Thor asked softly. "You will need it, I'm sure. As soon as we're done, we will all meet downstairs, okay?"

* * *

Loki was not in the least surprised that Captain America appointed himself the head of the next meeting as soon as everyone had gathered downstairs, changed into their regular Midgardian attire and looking physically and even somewhat mentally restored. He was, however, surprised when Rogers cleared his throat, walked over to where he stood and extended his hand to him with the words, "Thank you for everything you did today."

"Not for the work of modern art out there, though," Stark added, albeit absentmindedly, his voice lacking its usual sarcastic tone. "Those pillars are hideous."

Loki barely heard the engineer's words as he stared at the soldier's hand in disbelief, finding himself unable to reach for it. _There is hope in his thoughts_ , the Mind Stone had told the Soul Stone during their first encounter in that accursed dreamscape, _hope and longing for praise and acceptance that were promised but never received_. Yes, this was what he had craved—recognition, acknowledgment, maybe even forgiveness—but receiving it felt wrong all the same as he suddenly realized that them seeing him as anything other than the villain who was bound to eventually betray them would create all sorts of expectations. And the Norns knew he usually fell short of those. _What were you thinking, you hopeless fool?_ _You had better not let them in any more than you already have_.

Rogers harrumphed and, when Loki still made no move to reach for it, the other man simply lowered his hand and turned away with a subtle shake of his head.

"Wow, that was such a dick move," the raccoon commented in his typical, scathingly nonchalant fashion. Loki reflexively glanced at his brother, who, to nobody's surprise, looked rather disappointed at that outcome.

Wong used the moment of silence that followed to raise the objection that Loki had sealed the stones away against their will and Loki half-expected them to turn against him once more, but Captain America surprised him again when he opposed the wizard with the words, "Well, we do not need them right away. What we need to do now is figure out how we can save our friends and until we have an actual plan to save them, the stones can stay where they are."

The others murmured their agreement and Loki was suddenly not sure anymore whether he had ever woken at all.

"Alright," Rogers continued warily, directing his gaze at Thor. "We need to know everything there is to know about Nemesis. Who—or what—she actually is, how fast she is going to be here and whether her arrival will help us or bring more chaos."

"Freeing her will stop all of this," said Thor just as Loki told them, "Her arrival will possibly be our doom."

"Now, that is promising," the Widow noted, the distrust in her eyes making it obvious that she was still beyond skeptical of his counsel. Loki sighed inwardly when it dawned on him that nothing he had accomplished thus far, or would accomplish in the future, was ever going to dissolve the resentment she and Barton had towards him.

"But there is something else you need to know," Thor added softly, and with visible reluctance as he glanced at Valkyrie for emotional support.

 _Here we go_ , thought Loki, thrilled by the prospect of finally coming to know his brother's secret, but Captain cursed-be-his-soul America held up his hand to silence the Thundergod. "One second. We will also need to know everything there is to know about the Soul Stone and the Soul Word," Rogers said with a glance at Wong. "Both from the books and," he continued in a soft, guarded whisper when his gaze traveled to Stark, "from, well, personal experience."

The room fell silent in an instant. Stark's lips began to tremble. Again, Loki wished himself away to a place uninfested by human desperation. For a few agonizing seconds, nobody said a word and Loki honestly toyed with the idea to steal away from this ordeal in order to seek out food and wine, leaving behind an illusion in his stead. He had lived alone with his own mind for so long that it seemed downright foolish to even try to be a part of something bigger than himself now. The Widow's comment had made that more than clear and the urge to bolt as he had done so many times in the past became so strong that he felt his magic respond to his silent desires. _As long as your oafish brother does not try to tackle you into a hug again, do you really think anyone would notice?_ _Apart from that, you have the Infinity Stones_. _All of them_. _And you will live for another couple of thousand years_. _What are their struggles to you? Just let us leave_. _Come on_. _Thor will forgive you, eventually_. _He always does_. Just as he was about to chant the spell, Nebula spoke and her voice jolted him right back into a reality where, as outlandish as it was, Thor and at least some of his friends were actually trying to give him a chance. "Have you seen them?" the cyborg asked, the words almost choking in her throat.

"I—" Stark began but his voice trailed off, his eyes drowning in pain as his gaze searched for Loki's, which dispersed the last of the trickster's recreant impulses. "You said that they cannot be reclaimed?" Stark whispered. Pepper stood close beside him and laced her fingers around his, squeezing his hand for support.

"I said that what the Soul Stone took away cannot be reclaimed," Loki repeated uneasily, "but this is different." He tried to divest himself of the effect their emotions and his own had upon him; and failed spectacularly. "The people you lost, the Soul Stone did not claim these souls for herself. They were not sacrificed to her like—"

"Gamora," Nebula gasped. "Thanos killed her to obtain the stone. Are you saying that there is no way she will live? Not even if we …"

"I am sorry," Loki said and he was. He truly was. _By all the Realms, is there anything more perturbing than growing fond of some insignificant mortals who will be dead within a heartbeat? I think not_.

 _Oh, shut up now, will you? This is_ _ **not**_ _a good time_.

"But the others? Wh-what of the others?" asked Shuri, undoubtedly thinking of the brother who Loki was sure had vaporized right in front of her. "Can we save them now that we have the Soul Stone? Are they still alive? Are they …" Her voice broke.

"They are … but," Stark whispered, his lips quivering. The engineer had never been tall to begin with but now he looked as small as a frightened child that was cowering before the hardships of life. "I can't even begin to describe what I saw," Stark continued breathlessly. "It was so unreal and I'm not even sure if I really remember it." He paused before he mumbled, "How can this even _happen_? How can any of this even be _real_?" He looked up and his gaze found that of Captain America. " _How_?" he breathed.

Rogers gulped. "I-I don't know."

"Tony," whispered Nebula, cautiously but urgently all the same. "We _need_ to know."

Stark looked horrified. "I-I don't know. There was a … temple, bathed in orange light and there was a little girl …" His voice failed him and he buried his head inside his hands. "Her skin was … I don't even know what any of that _means_!" Pepper inched even closer to him, if that was possible at all, and wrapped her arms around his trembling shoulders.

The entire room lapsed into silence once more and Loki felt like an intruder when he cleared his throat after a few moments. "Well, I could," he began quietly, "you know, extract the memory." He waited for them to refuse and reprimand him for proposing to violate Stark's private emotions in such a way but then the engineer himself looked up, locking eyes with him, and he nodded.

"This is not going to be pleasant, Tony," Valkyrie cautioned him softly. "He will mentally undress you."

Loki tried to ignore the hot tingle in his ears when he heard those words.

"I know," replied Stark softly, his voice barely audible. "But you have a right to see this. All of you. You … _must_ see this because I could never make sense of it."

Loki swallowed and crossed the distance between them. Stark's breath hitched when Loki placed his trembling hand upon the engineer's forehead. Pepper exhaled a breath and cradled Stark's arm to her chest. Loki gave a silent nod, conjured up a magical screen for the projection of the other man's thoughts just as he had done with his own recollection of Hélgidomur, and then began to pull. After a few seconds, the temple bathed in orange light Stark had mentioned earlier flickered to life, showing a small Zehoberei girl with green skin and reddish hair at its entrance, the sight of which caused Nebula to gasp out Gamora's name in horror. _Who are you?_ Stark's voice asked. _Where are we?_

 _This is the Soul World,_ said the girl. _I am its guardian_.

 _Why am I here?_

 _You, Anthony, are here because of_ _ **this**_ , said the girl and as soon as the words had left her mouth, the scenery shifted and all of the Avengers recoiled in sheer terror. The projection showed people Loki did not recognize lying entangled in ghastly blackened thorned twines, their faces convulsed in pain and horror. _You want to save them_. One person in particular swam into focus; a human boy of no more than sixteen years of age, with brown hair, sharp features and pale skin. _They fared well until unspoken damage was inflicted upon the Soul Stone._ Again, the scenery shifted, showing the same people lying on cottony orange clouds with their eyes closed, dreamy smiles playing upon lips standing slightly open with pleasure. _If you want to protect them from further agony, you must ensure that the Soul finds her way home_. _She_ _ **must**_ _come home_.

After that, the projection faded and misery wrapped itself around the Avengers like a shroud. They murmured the names and nicknames of the people they had seen, which, with a few exceptions, did not mean anything to Loki. _The kid … honey … Buck … Strange … Quill …_ None of them managed to say any more than those names as their brains tried to process the horror they had just been forced to witness. Valkyrie turned away from their pain. Thor shifted his weight.

"Gamora," Nebula finally croaked. "That was … why was she there?"

"You said Thanos sacrificed her," Loki whispered, her pain sucking the very air out of his lungs. "That means she will be the guardian of the Soul World until another sacrifice is made."

"But why is she a child?" Nebula's lips trembled. "She is … Where is the grown-up Gamora? The one who _actually_ died?"

"I suppose that is the Gamora who Thanos thought of when he sacrificed her," speculated Wong, his voice a guarded whisper. "The daughter he loved."

Nebula shook her head violently. "No," she pressed out between clenched teeth, her voice vibrating with held back tears. "He did not love her."

"He did," Loki murmured and his chest yawned open when he understood the significance of that truth. If even a horrid creature like Thanos could love another person despite inflicting such damage upon them, he realized that Odin could have loved him too. Tears pooled into his eyes and he tried to blink them away even though he knew he would fail.

"Do _not_ say that!" Nebula shrieked, the tears spilling out of her own eyes and streaking down her blue cheeks as she sprang towards him like a wild animal. "You _knew_ him! He did not love her! He did not love _anyone_!"

"He did," Loki repeated, his voice quavering with all the emotions he had held back for what felt like an unthinkably long time. "If he had not loved her, he would have never obtained the stone."

A violent sob tore through the cyborg's chest and then her legs gave out and she sank into Loki's arms, burying her head against his shoulder. He looped his arms around her trembling frame without hesitation and pressed her gently to his chest, his own tears dripping onto her bald head.

* * *

 _Author's Note :_

 _Well, here we go. This was a delightful to write as it was painful. I don't suppose anyone could adjust to everything these characters had to go through in such a short time and it has only been about three days for Loki. After spending so much time dreading that Thanos might find him again, I don't think he has processed the titan's death at all. Not to mention that his emotions are all over the place and he hardly knows what to do with them. He truly is such an intriguing character to write because of his violent impulses and conflicted emotions that he usually tries to push away as soon as he senses their presence. And Nebula ... I can't even begin to imagine what she must feel and I don't allow myself to believe I could ever do her justice. I came up with this last bit during a ride through the forest on my mountainbike and when I said their lines out loud to myself, imagining the scene, I actually teard up a bit._

 _I think that's it for now. See you soon x_


	37. Because you earned our trust

#37

Nebula cherished Loki's comforting embrace for much longer than he would have ever dared to but when he glanced at the others, his own tears running dry, he realized that they too were comforting each other and that being overwhelmed by emotions was apparently no longer anything to be ashamed of in their company. Shuri was sobbing against Bruce's chest. Barton's head was resting on the Widow's shoulder. Stark and Pepper were huddled together still. Rocket, Wong and Rogers stood forlorn, murmuring unintelligible words. The only ones who did not seem overly shocked were Thor and Valkyrie, who had retreated towards the glass doors opening onto the lawn, urgently whispering in Asgardian. Loki strained his ears to hear but all he caught was a few fragments. _How would I …_ _can't possibly tell_ , Thor was saying. _You must_ , came from Valkyrie.

After a few moments, the cyborg jerked away and glanced up at Loki, aghast at her own fragility. He could see a burning shame in her eyes that he understood all too well. She mouthed an apology and he tried to comfort her with a smile, but it died on his lips when he felt woozy all of a sudden. "She was your sister," he said, finally having figured out the nature of their relationship when Wong had referred to Gamora as another daughter of Thanos only moments ago. He blinked to dispel the mist that began to spread out in front of his eyes. "Your grief will not be mistaken for weakness," Loki continued uneasily even though he knew that he would judge himself no less harshly if he had crumbled like this.

Nebula gave a hesitant nod, hagridden by the crippling pain of her loss. "We need to get them out of there," Steve Rogers was shouting as Loki's legs grew weaker, almost giving out. "Now!"

"And how do you propose we do that?" Wong asked the soldier but Loki hardly heard him. His vision began to swim as if he had indeed consumed the barrel of ale he had yearned for earlier. "What is wrong?" asked Nebula, who was still standing beside him. He sensed rather than saw all eyes darting towards him.

Loki squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, groping for something to hold on to. Nebula drew closer to him, supporting his elbows. "I-I don't know," he lied, directing his attention inwards. _By Odin's ravens, what are you doing to me?_

"Oh come on, what _now_?" Romanoff chided him. "You really don't have to faint every thirty minutes, you know?"

"It's the Aether!" Thor cried out just as Reality replied with, _What Mind could not_ , knocking all the air out of him. Had he really allowed this ancient force of infinite destruction to allay his alertness with its mellifluous speech about how he had been created with love and how he could master the Mind Stone if only he tried? Had he really believed, even for one norndamned second, that it was his own decision to absorb Reality into himself? _All be damned_.

 _You know, for one so treacherous, you really are quite gullible, Loki_. _Did you really think you could master_ _ **me**_ _?_ The stone huffed a withering laugh and he felt a sharp stab of pain in his head. _You are such as sapskull_ , _blinded by your foolish need to prove yourself_ _worthy_.

"We need to get it out of you!" Thor yelled, sprinting towards him in a blur.

"Brother, no!" Loki cried out although he knew the warning would come too late. There was no stopping Thor once he had set his body in motion and before Loki could jerk away, Thor had grabbed him by the arm. Knowing what would follow, Loki inhaled sharply and then Reality unleashed a bolt of fiercely glowing red magic against his brother that sent him flying across the room and then crashed into Stark's machinery, which started crackling, smoke rising up into the air.

"What the hell?" the engineer screamed. "Why did you _do_ that?"

"It wasn't _him_ ," Thor explained, seemingly abashed by his and Loki's continuous aggravation of every problem as he scrambled back to his feet. "It was the stone protecting itself."

 _Protection is as good a cue as any_ , Loki thought and began to chant a protection spell, trying to seal his mind against the force hurtling through his body. _What I could with the power that flows through those veins_ , he had once mused but Thor had told him that it would consume him. What a nuisance it was that his oaf of a brother had been right. _But I will not let you_ , Loki murmured. _Do you hear me? You have to try harder than this_. Reality seethed with rage when the spell began to take effect and then retreated. For now.

"What exactly is happening?" Rogers asked as soon as he had found his voice again. Loki blinked once more and, finally, the room swam back into focus. The Avengers looked horrified and he felt a pang of guilt that he had caused yet another disruption when all they so desperately wanted was to find a way to rescue the loved ones they had lost. "What do those stones _want_ from us?"

"You destroyed my entire workplace," Stark gasped, his face a study of consternation.

"Not him. The stone," Thor repeated. "I told you how the Reality Stone once sought refuge inside Jane's body, right? That's what it does. It seeks out host bodies to draw from their life force and ultimately, I guess, it looks for a host. And if—"

"Honestly, who the hell _cares_?" Barton barked, glowering at him.

"We know you don't but we still need to get that thing out of him," Valkyrie replied softly, then focused Loki. "How do we do that?"

Loki shrugged his cluelessness.

"But why did you choose to absorb it if you knew what it would do to you?" Rogers added warily.

 _Yes, Loki_. _Why?_ He sighed. "Because, over the years, I have gotten spectacularly good at intricate plans going spectacularly wrong."

"Our friends are lost and _miserable_ inside that hellish place, waiting for us to rescue them!" Barton howled, his cheeks vibrating with pain. "You all saw what I saw, didn't you? They are _suffering_ and I will not stand here trying to save someone like _him_ when I could try to save my family instead!" His voice broke.

"I understand," Thor began but the archer cut him off in a voice hoarse with tears. "No, you don't. That is the problem."

"I am fine," Loki lied. "Let us—"

"Fine?" Thor echoed.

Loki silenced his brother with a glare. He did not want to care about them—least of all about the archer—but he felt his intestines churn at the very sight of his agony. "Barton is right. The Aether can wait."

Thor grumbled his dissatisfaction but said no more.

"So, what do we do?" asked Rocket. "How do we rescue them?"

"What are our options?" Rogers added.

"You said there is a plane of existence inside those stones, right?" Romanoff asked Thor, who gave a nod. "Can't we use magic to enter it?"

" _Enter it_?" Wong looked at her as if she were a dense child. "Are you out of your _mind_? We are talking about a plane of existence inside one of the most powerful artifacts—beings—of this universe. Even if we had a way of entering it, we would never make it out of the Soul Stone's belly alive."

"Thor entered the seventh stone to rescue Loki and he made it out alive," Bruce pointed out.

"I didn't. Hela did," Thor clarified, to which Bruce grimaced. "And speaking of Hela—"

"The Soul must find her way home!" Stark exclaimed, paying him no attention. Thor, Loki realized, looked almost grateful, albeit slightly guilty, for the interruption while Valkyrie pinched her lips in exasperation. "That's what Gamora told us," Stark went on, softly speaking the Zehoberei's name. "Can't we just return the stone to … wherever Thanos stole it from?"

"Vormir," whispered Nebula.

"We could but even if it is true that it stops their agony, it won't bring them back," Wong explained.

"And if we did that, we wouldn't have all six," Shuri said, her voice a trembling whisper at first but growing more firm as she continued, her eyes landing on Loki. "Thanos obliterated half of all life with a single snap of his fingers. You said that we needed the rest of the stones if we wished to undo the Snap. Well, we have them. Why don't _we_ just snap?"

Loki's lips parted in surprise.

Stark nodded eagerly, the usual spark returning to his eyes. "We have the real Reality Stone inside the gauntlet. We could reproduce a vibranium replica of it, so that Loki can get rid of the Aether by transferring its essence into the copy as he did with the Mind Stone. And we have the gauntlet too." He looked up, giddy with expectation. "We could build those things and then ... boom!" He snapped his fingers for emphasis.

"Please," Loki said. "You saw what the repercussion of Infinity Stone magic did to Thanos, right? He was thrice your size and"—Loki looked at Captain America—"well, thrice _his_ size and his body was probably ten times more resilient. You fought him, all of you. Nothing could pierce his skin and look how wielding the stones' magic scarred him. If it had that effect on a colossus such as him, what do you think it will do to your fragile human bodies?"

"You said earlier that these repercussions were due to the spell Eitri had put on the gauntlet," Valkyrie reminded him. "That Eitri and his people were aware of Thanos's plan and knew too that the universe that would remain after he'd accomplished it would be none worth saving, which is why they ensured that an abuse of the stones' powers on such a grand scale would not only destroy the gauntlet but also him _and_ the universe."

"That was part of it, surely," Loki conceded, "but no mortal could ever hope to—"

"No mortal, no," said the Widow, pausing for effect. "But _you_ could do it."

 _A few hours ago, they accused you of wanting the stones for yourself and now this?_ Loki laughed incredulously. "What?"

"You are no mortal," Rogers elaborated. "You know magic. You completely restored our bodies even though they were as good as dead. You could wield the stones to undo the Snap."

Loki thought of Thanos and his charred face. He thought of every warning he had read about the Infinity Stones' limitless powers in the books of old. He thought of Mind's and Reality's attempts to take possession of him. He thought of Frigga's words when she had first taught him the art of sorcery _. Beware that by using magic, we only ever slightly twist reality, my son_. _We do not, under any circumstances, change reality in fundamental ways, for no one can ever be sure if they would be able to bear the consequences_. He too thought of how all of them had been rather unwilling to acknowledge his usefulness until this moment. "Why would you suddenly trust me with such a monumental task?" Loki asked warily, a probable explanation creeping up on him as soon as he had voiced the question.

"What, are you scared of getting your flawless skin torched?" Barton sneered, confirming his silent suspicions.

"Because you earned our trust," Stark said, silencing the archer with a glare.

 _Liar_ , was the first thought to cross Loki's mind. _Trust cannot be earned so easily_. "But my body is not resilient enough to wield such an amount of magic," he replied through clenched teeth, his entire body seething with rage when something inside his mind began to whisper to him that the sole reason they would elect him for such a task was because he was expendable to them.

"No?" Romanoff asked with a snort. "What happened to the whole While-you-merely-wish-to-be-a-God- _I_ -truly-am-one narrative? Why can a not-God do it and you can't?"

"Well, technically, I am a giant," Loki snapped, his voice turning into a soft growl. Neither of them cared if the repercussion of using all six Infinity Stones at once was going to harm him and the realization roused the dark voice from its slumber faster than Loki could steel himself against its assault.

"Are you really gonna refuse?" asked Rocket. "I mean, refusing a handshake is one thing but this …"

 _This is all too much_ , Loki thought, the raccoon's voice fading away. Whatever he had believed to be able to accomplish, it was never going to work. He did not belong among them and if he had to spend one more second in their suffocating company, he would set the entire compound on fire. "And what makes you so sure I won't succumb to my evil nature and use the stones for some destructive purpose while I merely pretend to snap my fingers to bring your loved ones back?" Loki flared at them, momentarily delighting in the collective consternation following his charring words.

Thor cleared his throat, approaching him with great care. "Brother, please, calm down, okay?"

"Do not dare to brother-please-me," Loki growled, unable to stop himself. "This is what they all thought I was going to do until I helped them to kill Thanos, was it not? How come they suddenly changed their mind?"

" _We_ changed our minds because we realized that you've _changed_ ," Stark yelled, jerking away from Pepper, who was anxiously trying to hold him back. "Come on, just snap out of it! We know you're not the villain anymore, okay? You don't even _want_ this! Just, you know, calm the fuck down!"

The urgency in the engineer's words slammed into him, leaving him stunned. "He's right. You need to calm down," repeated Thor, his voice maddeningly calm.

 _What was that bit about usually falling short of expectations?_ Loki drew in a sharp breath. _You can rise above this_. _I know you can_. "I am calm," he said eventually, forcing himself to breathe despite the fact that he felt trapped. Trapped by his own foolish desire to belong somewhere although he knew in the bottom of his heart that no amount of good deeds was ever going to be enough to prompt a lasting change within his dark, chaotic nature.

"Great," Valkyrie exhaled. Stark flashed him a smile that could almost be described as encouraging and Loki's cheeks began to burn with hot embarrassment.

"I bet the Hulk could do it," Bruce mumbled with an expression of guilt stamped across his face, dispersing the silence that ensued.

"Physically, maybe," Loki speculated, trying to shake off the impact that the accursed self-proclaimed genius had upon him. "But cognitively? Not a chance."

Pepper had not spoken the entire time but now she straightened. "The question of physique aside, if the stones themselves are so malicious, could we even use them for something _good?_ Or are they going to corrupt anyone who wields them anyway?"

Shuri raised her eyebrows. "You mean like the One Ring?"

"What ring?" asked Loki.

"It's a famous fantasy story that was strongly influenced by Norse mythology," Pepper explained. "It's about a dark lord who secretly forges a master ring to control all other magical rings given to the other races of the world and it contains his malice, cruelty and his will to dominate all life. Which is why it will corrupt everyone who touches it and must be destroyed."

Loki's lips opened, then closed again, as he tried to process this.

"Well, we have the Time Stone too," Rocket reminded them, "and there's nothing inherently good or bad about setting the clock back." He glanced up at Wong. "Thor said that everything went to shit when their father died shortly before Thanos attacked, no? Why don't we just, you know, rewind the clock a few weeks and have an Asgardian army led by Allfather-God-Odin blow that purple shitbag into oblivion before he can ever _think_ of snapping his fingers?"

Wong shook his head.

Thor screwed up his face as if someone had kicked him straight in the crotch. "Our father," he said with a grief-stricken side-glance at Loki, "he succumbed to madness after our mother died. If we were to prevent any of this, we would have to set the clock back five years and—"

"How about six years?" Bruce interrupted him, shooting a glance at Loki as well. "And you tell your father everything about this threat as soon as Thor brings you back to Asgard? That way, humanity wouldn't have anything to fear at all."

"That is _not_ how it works, Bruce," Loki pressed out. "Time travel is nothing but a dream concocted by the overactive imagination of troubled Midgardian writers. Even if you turn back the clock, it will not truly change anything. The threads of our fate have already been woven long ago. Even if you get to change things, the outcome will be more or less the same."

"What is that even supposed to _mean_?" Rocket cried out.

"It means that we cannot tamper with natural law on such a grand scale," Wong replied. "Thanos did and look what happened. The universe itself has become unhinged. The magic cohering our reality has been disturbed. If we were to set back time so many years or tried to change the fabric of reality again by availing ourselves to the powers of all six stones—if that is still possible at all—we would only make everything so much worse."

"So, what are you saying?" Barton whispered. "That there is _nothing_ we can do?"

"I guess this is where Nemesis comes in," Rogers speculated, turning to Thor. "You said that freeing her might stop all of this?"

"I-I'm not sure," Thor stammered. "But that's what she said to me."

" _Said_ to you?" Loki echoed, stunned by the fact that his sorcery-illiterate brother had apparently communicated with the ancient magic locked inside an Infinity Stone. "When?"

"Well, it was Nemesis who called out to me," Thor began. "You said you never called out to me for help and, as it turns out, you were telling the truth. Nemesis did. She sent me a message in a dream and as soon as I heard it, I set out to get you back. I didn't realize it was her at first but then I felt the same magic on Hélgidomur and I somehow reached out to it and she said that I must free her or else the universe would soon bear the full damage of father's passing."

"But Reality said," Loki began, stopping himself when he realized that her advice could no longer be trusted. "Never mind."

"What?" asked Stark.

"Nothing," Loki answered.

"No book in the library of Kamar Taj ever mentioned Nemesis," Wong interjected and Loki silently cackled at the wizard's naïve conviction that the library of the Masters of the Mystic Arts held all the secrets of the universe.

"Well, Loki knows of her," said Rogers, boring his gaze into him. "What is she? What is her purpose? And what was this surge of magic turning the whole of Hélgidomur into darkness all about?"

"Why are you asking _me_?" Loki asked, his voice sounding almost whiny.

"Because you knew of her existence all along. You said that the only reason you told us you weren't sure was because you wanted to provoke us into action," the captain reminded him.

Loki exhaled a breath. "I didn't _know_. I only heard tales. Until a few days ago, I thought that her existence was nothing more than a legend of old, a myth like the Midgard Serpent or the squirrel dwelling in the World Ash."

"What did the tales say?" Romanoff asked, ignoring his references to Asgardian lore.

"That she is the Mother of all Creation and that she brought forth all life in this universe by shattering her own existence and sending the splinters of it, the Infinity Stones, into the void. And once she reunites with them, she will be reborn," Loki recited.

"And what happens then?" asked Rocket.

"The Reality Stone said that the Infinity Stones would perish if they were ever reunited with her but I am no longer sure I can trust anything the stones told me." _Except for one thing, maybe_ , Loki thought warily, replaying the conversation with them in his head once more. _We have all been in Odin's possession for an unthinkably long time when the universe was still young_. He could feel that the puzzle, which had been laid out in front of him upon his arrival in Hela's lair, was beginning to piece itself together in the abyss of his mind, pushing its forming image ever closer to the surface of his consciousness. _Ragnarok_. _The lie that bent the entirety of the Nine Worlds to Odin's will_ … _I_ _t was Nemesis who called out to me_ … _You gained access to my memories_ … _Not I_ ; _this place_ …

"But if the stones really did perish?" Nebula asked. "What would happen to … _us_?"

"That no one knows," Loki answered truthfully.

"But she is the mother of all stones." Thor searched for his gaze. "That's what you said. That the Aether was birthed by Nemesis and that this is why Hela could use it to reverse the spell that turned you Aesir because the seventh stone can reverse all changes to reality caused by any of the other six. So, if we had it, couldn't we use it to undo the Snap without dire consequences?"

"It is possible," Loki conceded after giving it a moment of thought. " _If_ we could convince Nemesis to do that."

"So, what do we do?" Rogers asked. "Just steel ourselves for her arrival?"

"You said she was coming, right?" Shuri clarified when she saw the look of confusion on Loki's face.

"How could she be _coming_ though?" Stark asked no one in particular. "I mean, as far as I understood, her conscience is locked inside a _stone_. She can't come here unless someone is _carrying_ the stone here, right?" He glanced at Loki. "Right?!"

"Right," said Thor, the reluctance in his voice unmistakable.

"Which brings us back to Hela," Bruce stated uneasily. When Thor nodded, he continued with, "So, what you're really saying is that _Hela_ is the one who is coming for us? Is that what you were trying to tell us earlier?"

"Yes." Thor cleared his throat and Valkyrie suddenly took an intense interest in her feet. "No." He paused, his teeth pulling at his bottom lip. "Well, it's complicated."

 _Here we go_ , Loki thought again, mentally rubbing his palms together with childish excitement when it became clear that no one was going to interrupt his brother this time.

"Complicated how?" Stark asked.

"Well, I-I have a confession to make," Thor declared and all pairs of eyes in the room darted towards him in an instant.

* * *

 _Author's Note :_

 _~ Okay wow, this chapter feels quite long to me (even though it isn't overly long judged by the word count alone) and I know there's some of you who'll probably think that I'm dragging Loki's emotional struggles out a little too much. But, the way I see him, there's always going to be this force of dark chaos inside of him that he can't fully shake off and that will break through whenever he feels overwhelmed or cornered or out of his depth. When I wrote this, I also had something in mind that Tom Hiddleston wrote to Kieron Gillen when Journey Into Mystery came out in 2011. "You and I see Loki the same way," Tom told him. "He's one dark, anarchic, bottomless black hole of rage, hatred, pity and pain. An exiled outcast, a lost & lonely agent of chaos, who wouldn't know what to do with familial forgiveness if it walked up to him in the street and slapped him in the face." Now that was in 2011, obviously, and Loki had time to heal but especially that last part I think will remain true for a long time. It would be quite the miracle if he were suddenly able to change overnight.  
~ __Other than that, you probably have a ton of questions. Are the stones truly evil? What do they really want? Was everything they told Loki a lie? Did they just use him to get out? Could any of the Avengers hope to ever wield them again? Can they be destroyed? Should they be? Well, I guess you will see.  
~ __Oh, and I probably have to say too that one of the main problems I had with Endgame was that seemed so very easy to me. Time travel is always too easy a solution in my opinion and that everyone was suddenly able to wield the stones also bugged me. So, I'm obviously making it more difficult for them because there must be stakes.  
~ __Last but not least, and you will have noticed this, the "gotten spectacularly good at intricate plans going spectacularly wrong" is a slightly modified quote from Daniel Kibblesmith's fourth Loki issue._

 _That said, see you soon xx_


	38. I have no plans to die again so soon

#38

"We're listening," said Steve but the words that Thor wanted to give voice to, _needed_ to give voice to, caught in his throat. He glanced at the destroyed machinery and then at Tony's hand, wrapped in a new bandage. He had inflicted so much damage upon them and he knew all too well that, since he could offer them nothing else, he at least owed them the truth. All the wars they had fought side by side, every victory that they had achieved with their blood and sweat, and every defeat they had suffered through together; everything came to nothing in this moment. Time was gaining upon him and if the Son of Odin did not figure out something very soon, the mortals he had sworn to protect with his last and every breath would be dead.

But how could he possibly tell them? Maybe he could tell them a half-truth, Thor thought with a twinge of panic, leaving out the atrocious parts, and then tell Loki the truth in secret, so that his trickster brother could figure out … _By all the Realms!_ Thor glanced at Loki and, in a flash of sudden clarity, realized to his greatest dismay that he had never once thought of how his brother would react to the revelation even though his life was as much a part of the bargain as the lives of his friends. His stomach churned. Out of nowhere, Frigga's voice interrupted his thoughts from afar, soothing like the gurgle of a small stream on a warm spring day. _You are a miserable liar, my love_. He saw her tender smile in his mind's eye and almost felt the gentle touch of her warm hand caressing his cheek. _Your heart is too good for lies and that is a wonderful thing_. His mother was right. How could he ever expect to cut a better figure than his father had if he led his brother further down the same path of lies, neglect, deceit and pretense that had ripped apart their entire family? If he led his friends down with them? No, he could not do this, not anymore, not to any of them; especially not to Loki.

He would not take a single step further. Thor cleared his throat, apprehension clasping his heart like a jaw vise.

"Oh, come on, I know that you swore an oath to her," Loki said, and the expression on his face was almost pitiful. "Out with it, brother. What did you promise her in return for my life?"

Valkyrie's mouth had gaped open in surprise. "How did you," she mumbled to herself, leaving the rest unspoken.

"Figure it out?" Loki asked. "Well, I am smart."

"You _bargained_ for his life?" Rocket exclaimed, shock flaring up in his rabbit eyes. "I thought you fought that bitch!" The others began to murmur to each other in low voices, glances of panic and confusion shooting across the room.

"Yes, I did," answered Thor, the words forming on his tongue still refusing to leave his mouth. "I mean, I fought her but …"

"Would it hurt you to hurry up with your confession a little?" Natasha asked, her brows drawing together in a frown. "Just in case you forgot, our friends are waiting for us to rescue them."

"I promised her," Thor began, Valkyrie's words clamoring through his head. _You swore an oath to kill your own brother in order to free him from the claws of death? How paradoxical is that?_ "I promised her that I would return Loki to her—"

"Within four weeks, I should guess?" Loki interrupted him sourly, his eyes flickering. Yes, he was smart. He was too smart for his own damn good.

"Within four weeks, yes," Thor confirmed, drowning in the shame of his own foolishness. "I didn't think this through, okay?" he gasped, his voice beginning to tremble as the anxiety, which the healing spell had extinguished, creeped back up on him.

"Obviously," Loki hissed.

"That was in the beginning, though," Thor continued in a small voice, his chest tightening again. He gasped for breath and glanced around, feeling the confused, skeptical and fearful glances of his friends on his skin, torching it like fire. And then, before he could make any more excuses, he just blurted out the truth. "She came back to renegotiate when she sensed that we somehow disturbed the magic of the Infinity Stones on Hélgidomur and—"

"When?" Loki interrupted him once more.

"When you were resting on the ice floe out there," Valkyrie replied with a jerk of her head in the direction of the glass doors.

"I have twenty-four more hours to return you _and_ the Infinity Stones to her in Niflheim," Thor concluded, his tongue going numb. "And if I fail to do what was promised, she will … come back here and claim all our souls. Yours, mine and those of my … mortal friends."

"Well, twenty-two hours and ten minutes," Valkyrie corrected him, her mouth standing slightly open in a pained grimace. "To be exact."

The entire room fell deathly silent except for the unspoken demands vibrating through the air. The consternation on his friend's faces felt like a knife slicing through the Thundergod's heart. Loki had gone stock-still. "And by return you mean—"

Thor gulped. "Kill you."

" _What_?" Bruce exclaimed, his face of a ghastly pallor.

"Why would she want you to kill me?" Loki whispered almost tonelessly.

"You mean, apart from the fact that she's a sadistic, murderous bitch who thrives off the suffering of others?" Valkyrie asked softly.

"She's been inside your head. She knows about …" Thor let his voice trail off and gestured towards himself and then to his brother with his hand. "She figured it would make for a great …" He indicated his head.

Loki snorted a maniacal laugh. "I think I understand."

The sentence hung in the air for a few heartbeats before the others recovered from their initial shock and the tension in the room erupted into a searing cacophony of accusations.

"How _could_ you?" came from Natasha.

"How _dare_ you?" came from Clint.

"We're all doomed," came from Wong.

"I don't believe this," came from Pepper.

"I can't believe you would do this us," came from Steve.

"How can we fix this?" came from Shuri.

"We cannot possibly _fight_ her! We're gonna lose _again_ ," came from Bruce.

"We should have left your sorry ass rotting in space," came from Rocket.

"Loki?" came from Tony.

Thor immediately glanced at his brother, whose eyes had gone almost dead, and all of the Avengers lapsed into silence at once when they grasped the threat lurking in those eyes. Thor could almost hear the conclusions Loki was drawing in his conflicted mind. He had fought to overcome the darkness inside of him to help the Avengers to kill Thanos and retrieve the stones. He had healed them, possibly allowing himself to believe that he might finally have a chance at redemption, at forgiveness, only to learn that his own brother had never intended for him to live longer than a month. That his own brother had offered his soul back to the Goddess of Death as soon as all debts were paid. "Loki, please," Thor croaked but his voice failed him. "I thought I could …"

"Don't waste your breath," Loki said in a voice so alien that the blood in Thor's veins froze at the sound. "You made a bargain that results in my death whether you fulfil it or not." A maniacal grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. "You rescued me only to condemn me back to death while assuring me that you had something to make up for and all that." He cackled, a feral glint in his eye. "You fed me nothing but _lies_! I should have listened to—" He interrupted himself and turned away. "Never mind."

Thor winced at the accusations. "No, it wasn't _like_ that!" He tried to lock eyes with Loki, silently pleading for his understanding. "The only reason I agreed was because I knew you would be able to trick her out of it!"

Loki laughed tonelessly and threw his hands up in the air. "That is so typical. Thor makes a mess and expects Loki to clean it up for him and if it goes awry, it will still be Loki's fault somehow because, well, everything is _always_ Loki's fault! Is that not how all stories go? Is that not how Asgardian _logic_ works?"

"Why are you talking about yourself in the third person?" Tony asked, alarmed.

"Because," Loki sneered at him, his eyes flickering madly, "I am a psychopath."

Pepper, Bruce and Rocket took an instinctive step backwards but Tony did not recoil. "Stop it. No one in this room blames _you_ for this," the engineer said, locking eyes with Loki. He carefully raised his bandaged hand and when Loki merely stared at it in bewilderment, he stretched out his arm, his hand traveling to Loki's shoulder in slow motion.

Pepper held her breath as Tony stood next to Loki, his hand squeezing his shoulder. "Calm down, okay?" he whispered, and the height difference between them made the sight so outrageous that Thor felt a desperate laugh building up inside his chest.

"Can we for once just stop making _everything_ about him?" Clint suddenly exclaimed in utter despair, destroying whatever chance Tony might have had to deescalate the situation. Thor knew that the other man did not mean it—that his bereavement was eating him alive and that the sight of wife and children tortured by the Soul Stone was slowly driving him mad—but Loki did not and he did not care. He jerked away from Tony and sprang forward, lunging at the archer. "How is this _not_ about me?"

"Brother, stop!" Thor screamed as he took three giant steps forward, trying to pull him back.

"Because it's about _us_!" Clint yelled. "Thor brought you back to help _us_ kill Thanos and retrieve the stones to rescue _our_ people!"

"Which I _did_!" Loki screamed.

"At the price of our _lives_!" Natasha howled.

 _And my own_ , was what Thor expected Loki to reply but he did not. Instead, he lashed out. "Don't you fret, Miss Romanoff. You are the heroes. Is that not what you do? Make the sacrifice play and die so that the people you love can live? It is me who is new at this."

Natasha's lips gaped open in sheer consternation. From the corner of his eye, Thor saw Clint raising his hand but before his brain had time to grasp the implications of the movement, the archer sprang towards his brother, his hands slamming into the side of Loki's face. He howled in pain when the bones in his hand splintered against Loki's cheekbones.

"Clint!" yelled Natasha, her arm looping around his shoulder. "What happened?"

"He probably broke his wrist," Valkyrie explained flatly. "We are, well, Asgardians are very strong."

"And I will break a lot more than just his wrist," Loki hissed, his cheeks vibrating with the effort to stay calm, "if he does not stop making it sound as if it was in _any_ way my fault that I just can't seem to die or that Thor has the intellectual capacity of a loaf of bread!"

"No one is saying that you had _any_ part in this!" Valkyrie screamed, yanking Loki back by the shoulders, forcing him to look at her. "This is _not_ on you! It is on us, okay?"

"She's right!" Steve shouted hoarsely when he realized what Valkyrie was and Tony had been trying to do, his eyes traveling from Thor to Clint. "This is _not_ Loki's fault, Clint," he continued in a voice heavy with disappointment and disbelief. "It's Thor's and Thor's alone. _He_ did this to us."

The words sucked all the air from Thor's lungs and the tightness in his chest almost drove him to his knees.

"Fine," Clint conceded with all the effort he could probably muster, forcing himself to look Loki in the eye. "It's not your fault."

Loki snorted, the fierce gleam in his eyes evidencing that his mind was working at the speed of lightning. "Even if you really meant that, which I very much doubt, by the way, I do not stand a chance, do I? An oath sworn to a God by a God is binding."

"Loki, I," Thor began, whatever he could have said dying on his tongue.

"But I have no plans to die again so soon, so, if you will all excuse me," Loki continued and then his form simply vanished from sight.

Rocket's snout gaped open. "What the …"

"Neither do _we_!" Tony shouted after him, his words surging against nothing but empty air. "If you don't come back here, we're all dead! _Dead_!"

"Tony," Valkyrie whispered.

"What? He just made himself invisible, right? He's still here, isn't he?" Tony gulped and a wave of distraught realization washed over Pepper's face when she caught on to all the different emotions resonating in the engineer's desperate words.

"No," said Wong. "His magical signature is gone."

Pepper sank against the wall and Tony was by her side in an instant, trying to comfort her, but she slapped his hand away.

"And so are the stones," Steve noted, his face paling when the full meaning behind those words registered with him. "Loki has all the stones!"

"Can't you just try to open the pocket dimensions again?" Valkyrie asked Wong, her voice rising in panic. "And get us the rest of the stones at least?"

"Pocket dimensions are nothing but magical bags of safekeeping," the wizard replied. "They are strapped to their creator, in a sense."

Steve shot him a puzzled glance.

"If Loki is gone, so are the dimensions," Wong elaborated grimly.

"So, we're fucked," concluded Rocket in that typically blunt, unadorned fashion of his. "Loki has all the stones _and_ he's back on his crazy shit. Not to mention that the damn Aether is trying to take possession of him, which is probably gonna make him even more crazy, and that _you_ "—he glowered at Thor—"no longer have any of the things your sister wants. Did I miss anything?"

"No," whispered Tony. "I think that's a pretty accurate summary."

Once more, the room fell silent and Thor tried to force some saliva down his numb throat. He should have anticipated this but, once again, he had fallen into old patterns. He had taken Loki's help for granted, not wasting a single Bor-damned thought on how his brother might feel about what he had done. And now, he was gone. Again. When Thor looked up, all eyes were resting upon him and the bewilderment combined with the silent accusations and the bottomless disgust that his friends' gazes articulated were near unbearable.

"So, where did he go?" asked Nebula. "How do we bring him back?"

Thor merely shrugged his shoulders in response and felt as pathetic as a worm.

"How _could_ you," Natasha repeated.

"I-I know that there is no way _ever_ to apologize or make amends," Thor whispered, "but I—"

"No, there's not," Clint interrupted him briskly. "You condemned us all to _death_!"

"And you have no idea how to fix it, do you?" asked Bruce.

Thor made another attempt to swallow but his chest was so tight, he could barely find the strength to breathe.

A desperate laugh escaped Shuri's lips. "I thought you were exaggerating when you said that everything we had to endure is their fault," she said to no one in particular. "But it just happened again, didn't it?" She focused Thor and he saw a coldness he had not known she was capable of in them that made him shudder. "It's because of your abusive relationship with your brother that all of us will _die_."

"You will not die," Thor brought himself to say even though he had no idea how to prevent that outcome now that Loki and his sly mind were gone.

"Yes, we will," stammered Pepper. "You sacrificed our _souls_ for his … Do you even know …" Her voice trailed off.

"Do you even _care_?" asked Rocket, his voice as sharp as a scalpel.

When Thor only gasped in return, Natasha mumbled, "I can't believe you made that choice. You are an _Avenger_!"

"As if _that_ still means anything," Tony grumbled.

"Well, technically, I was the one to make that choice," Valkyrie finally admitted, allowing Thor to release a breath.

" _You_?" asked Pepper, her face falling.

"Thor did not want to agree to the final bargain." She looked at him, her eyes so full of compassion that every fiber in his body began to ache for her touch. "He was well and painfully aware of what he had done and he would not have risked any more of your lives."

"Any _more_?" asked Steve. "Whose lives were part of the original bargain?"

"One mortal, human friend of mine," Thor conceded softly. "She wasn't specific about who, even though she mentioned your name and Tony's."

"So, _you_ sold us out," Clint said to Valkyrie, his eyes narrowing to slits. "Why? What leverage does she have over you? Can't have been Loki's well-being."

Valkyrie's jaw worked and Thor knew how difficult it would be for her to admit to the truth. "Unfortunately, yes." She grimaced. "Hela was trying to torture him, giving him nightmares, and I couldn't bear to look, so I … I said we'd agree."

"You gave Thor permission to agree because Loki had a _nightmare_?" Natasha asked, sharply accentuating every single world.

"Look, I know how that sounds but I never heard anyone cry out in terror the way he did when Hela made him relive his greatest nightmares," Valkyrie said. "I know that he's an insufferable pain in the ass, who makes it near impossible to like him, but that doesn't mean that he deserved any of what he's been through. I just couldn't watch. If you'd been there, knowing what Hela is capable of, you wouldn't have been either."

"Not very likely," Clint snarled. "You Asgardians barged into our world with your Infinity Stones and your magic and your mind control and opened the doors for all kinds of aliens who destroyed our planet and killed the people we love and for what? For Loki," he spat. "You sacrificed the normal lives we had when you came here trying to stop that psychopath and now you sacrificed our actual lives for him too. It's not hard to guess that those lives mean nothing to you! So, why would Loki's life mean anything to me? I swear I would drive a dagger right through his heart if that undid the Snap!"

Thor felt the thunder crackling around his palms with angry hisses and Valkyrie instantly reached for it to calm him.

"Then how are you any different from Thor?" Nebula asked. She had not spoken much at all since his revelation but now she stepped forward, her enormous black eyes flickering intently. "You would make a pact with the devil if it brought your family back." Clint was about to protest but the cyborg spoke over him. "I can see it your in eyes. If you had been in Thor's position, you would have made the very same choice. If the Goddess of Death had offered _you_ four more weeks with your family, you wouldn't have thought of anyone in this room and you wouldn't have thought about how insane this bargain was either."

The archer lowered his gaze and Steve too suddenly looked embarrassed even though the cyborg had not addressed him at all.

"I know I wouldn't have," Nebula continued quietly and Thor's anger died down when he saw the pain in her eyes. "I would have done the same for Gamora in a heartbeat."

"What do you mean, you 'would have the same _for_ her'?" Tony asked incredulously. "Thor didn't exactly do Loki a favor. He swore an oath to kill him again within four weeks' time for whatever reason and didn't even bother to tell him!"

"Tony," Pepper asked warily, drawing out his name. "Are you alright?" She placed a hand on his cheek. "Did he …?"

"What?" Tony asked sharply.

Pepper swallowed. "Did he … brainwash you when he read your mind?" she asked as if he would be aware if that had indeed been the case.

Tony's brows drew together in a frown. "Why would you even say that?"

"Because you're so … concerned about him," Pepper whispered, her voice barely audible. "I mean, this is not about … I mean …"

"That is not what I meant," Nebula replied as if the exchange between Tony and Pepper had not taken place at all. "But I would not hesitate to give my life or any of yours for my sister's if that would allow me to say all those things that I never got to say to her." Tears pooled into her eyes once more and she wiped them away with her good hand before they had a chance to spill.

"That's reassuring, really," Bruce mumbled, a melancholic smile scurrying over his face. "You know, I remember a time when the Avengers had left their status of a chemical mixture ready to explode behind to become a group of friends who had each other's back. But it seems we're back to square one, where I might end up with a knife in my back any time."

"You've been gone a long time, Bruce," Steve answered grimly, a shadow of regret clouding his gaze.

"I have heard enough," said Shuri, turning towards Wong. "Can you open a portal to Wakanda for me, please? I want to go home."

"May I come with you?" asked Bruce with a disappointed glance at Thor and Valkyrie as the wizard complied and an orange mandala sparked to life from his palms.

Shuri nodded and, stepping into the courtyard of the Royal Palace, she said, "Everyone who would not condemn my soul to hell is still welcome in Wakanda," over her shoulder.

Wong himself walked after her even though he kept the portal open. Pepper drew a sharp breath and looked at Tony, who shook his head. "No, I'm gonna stay here."

Pepper exhaled a desperate laugh. "You think he's gonna come back," she mumbled, more to herself than to him. "You really do." She turned away, a tear spilling out of her eye. "I'm such a fool," she quietly berated herself as she stepped through the portal and then vanished from sight.

"Wh-what is happening?" asked Bruce with a confused glance after Pepper.

"I think they're breaking up," Rocket replied flatly.

"Rocket," Nebula hissed.

"Sorry." The rabbit made a grimace. "But you shouldn't," he yelled when Bruce made a move to step through the portal after her. "I mean, we shouldn't. The Avengers shouldn't. Last time, Thanos fucked us over real good after you split up and now that we have Hela against us, we'd better stick together. All of us!" He glanced up at Thor. "Even if it really hurts to be in your company right now."

Thor gulped and every second he waited for Bruce to make his decision felt like a new splinter of glass slicing into his intestines.

* * *

 _Author's Note:_

 _You probably hate me now, which is okay. Just go ahead and say it._


	39. We have lost our tower of strength

#39

"Bruce?" Steve asked, his eyes silently pleading with the scientist, who only let out a frustrated sigh, his shoulders sagging in defeat. "What can we even do at this point? Even if we …" Bruce's gaze searched for Steve's. "There is nothing we can do."

"There's always something we can do," Tony assured him, even if his voice did not sound as convincing as he had probably intended. "We're the fucking _Avengers_."

"As if _that_ still means anything," Bruce sighed. "Isn't that what you said ten minutes ago? And you're right. Our days of glory are definitely over. I didn't want to believe it at first but the evidence was there from the moment I set foot onto Earth again."

Tony blew out a breath.

"And now," Bruce continued with a glance at Thor that articulated the same distrust with the same trace of repulsion that had flickered across his expression when the others had picked them up on the ice floe in the middle of the ocean—but magnified tenfold. "Now we have lost our tower of strength." A sad laugh escaped his lips and Thor's legs grew weak. "You were our rock, Thor. You always cheered us on. When you arrived in Wakanda with the Stormbreaker, you gave us all hope. You gave us something to believe in."

Tears sprang to Thor's eyes, blurring his vision. He wanted to say something that would stop his friend from firing those looks of disappointment and repulsion at him but the words dried up in his tight throat and he choked on a sob instead.

"But then you betrayed us to that evil creature, fired a lightning blast at Tony inside a goddamned plane, lied to your own brother after calling _him_ the worst brother …" Bruce's voice trailed off.

"I am going to close the portal now," Wong's voice came from the other side of the gleaming ring.

Bruce gave a nod, mouthed an apology at Steve and Tony and then slipped through the sparking orange gateway followed by Clint and Natasha, who seemed the most desperate to be away from Thor's presence. The portal closed behind them with the soft hiss of magic, plunging the room into an eerie stillness.

"We're _so_ fucked," Rocket pointed out once again and moments crawled by in suffocating silence after this assessment before anyone said another word.

The silence became so unbearable that the world around Thor turned upside down, forcing him onto his knees. He greedily gulped for breath but his lungs seemed to have shrunk to the size of pinheads. He was dimly aware of Valkyrie's hand on his upper arm as she slid down beside him, murmuring something in Asgardian that did not reach his ears through the thick veil of panic and pain enveloping him.

"Alright, calm down, okay?" Tony's voice rang out somewhere beside him.

"I-I wanted to w-wait for the p-perfect moment," Thor stammered, the words vibrating on his erratic breaths. "I n-needed s-some t-time to bring h-him a-around. If I-I had told h-him right away …"

"He would have lost his shit," Tony finished for him. "Yes, we get that."

"It's not as if he didn't lose his shit anyway though," Rocket commented pointedly.

"I think we _all_ need to calm down," said Steve and even in his state of blank despair, Thor figured that the other man was reflecting on the choices he had made for Bucky Barnes when he continued. "What's done is done and I think we can all agree that Nebula was right. As long as we haven't been faced with such a choice ourselves, we should not pass judgment."

His words of reassurance, reluctant though they were, calmed Thor enough for him to be able to draw a breath at last.

"Okay, so how much more time do we have left?" Tony asked.

"Twenty-one hours and forty minutes," Valkyrie replied softly.

"Why did Bruce say that we cannot fight Hela?" Steve continued. "If Wong came back, couldn't he just open a portal for us to Niflheim, so that we could surprise her?"

Valkyrie shook her head. "We fought _and_ killed her before and she is still here. That's not gonna do us much good. Apart from that, even _if_ we defeated her," she added, "it would not release Thor from his bargain."

"How is that even possible?" Tony mumbled.

"She is the Goddess of Death," Thor explained, the memory of her icy-blue stare when she had forced him to agree to the new bargain burning itself forever into his mind. "She cannot truly die because she has a pact with death—"

"How can you even have a _pact_ with death?" Tony cut in. "What _is_ death exactly, in your weird mythological cosmos? A deity?"

"A force." Thor coerced another breath into his lungs. "Like power or time. It is just there, in the form of energy, but it has its own—"

"Just to be clear," Rocket cut in, his sarcastic façade finally crumbling a little, "what is going to happen to us if we don't fix this? How are we going to … die? How is she going to come for us? Is it going to be … painful?"

Thor winced at the fear in the rabbit's eyes. "We will not let it come to this."

"No?" asked Steve. "Then what _are_ our options, exactly? How did you think Loki was going to help you?"

Thor froze when he realized that he had not wasted any thought on this either. Again, he had just silently presupposed that Loki would figure it out in the same way he had always maneuvered their warriors out of the most intricate situations on countless battlefields with his cunning and his magic. And even though every conversation with Loki could best be described as an attempt to diffuse a bomb within ten seconds without knowing which wires would cause the explosives to blow up in his face, Thor was suddenly overwhelmed by a fierce longing for his brother's company.

"The only way to get out of that bargain is to offer her something she would want more than Loki's soul," Valkyrie replied for him when Thor remained silent. "I mean, what she does is …" She paused and searched for Rocket's gaze before she reluctantly answered his question. "When Odin banished her, he proclaimed Hela the ruler of the dishonored dead, a task she is to fulfill in life and death alike. While she dwells inside her kingdom, she draws her strength from the souls that travel to her, feasting on the evil and terror and darkness inside of them. The darker and more twisted the soul, the stronger she grows. With all that is going on inside Loki's mind, well, I think you're getting the picture."

"So, all we need to do is find someone who is more delusional?" Tony asked. "Is that what you're saying?"

Valkyrie cast a semi-apologetic look at Thor before she nodded. "I think that's what I'm saying, yes."

"Thanos," Nebula whispered. "His soul is more twisted than anyone's. He took control of Loki's mind and instilled the delusions there. Doesn't that mean that they're ultimately his own?"

"But Thanos is already dead," Thor reminded the cyborg. "She probably possesses his soul already."

"There must be thousands of beings out there who whose minds are fucked up," Rocket exclaimed. "Hell, there's an intergalactic prison for the mentally deranged on Sovereign. We could break in, scoop up a few prisoners and present them to her."

"Okay, now you're being ridiculous," Tony reprimanded him, but not without a flicker of compassion in his hazel eyes.

Rocket narrowed his eyes at the engineer. "I'm kinda panicking here, okay? I don't wanna end up as food for some soul-eating goddess."

"But this is personal," said Thor. "We cannot just give her a random soul in exchange for Loki's. She has a score to settle with him. He was the one who released Surtur and kindled the fire that burned Asgard to the ground and likely killed her."

"Because you told him to," Valkyrie added pointedly.

"Because my father told _me_ to," Thor defended himself even though he knew that he was solely responsible for Asgard's destruction and that its destruction was the true reason for why Hela wanted his soul as well.

"Not to mention that she wants the stones too," Steve noted, his face twisting into a grimace of such pain that Thor felt his intestines clench up yet again. "Including the one in which the people we are trying to save are currently being tortured."

The room lapsed into silence once more as the others took this in.

"The stones aside, do you really think Loki would be able to find someone whose soul Hela might value more than his?" Nebula asked eventually.

Valkyrie gave a half-shrug. "Possibly."

"And there's no way you could bring him back?" Steve asked.

"I wouldn't even know where to start looking," Thor admitted and the disappointment in Captain America's eyes drove another dagger into his heart. "But it doesn't matter. He's gonna come back. I know this, Steve. You saw that he has changed. He will _not_ let you all die after he _saved_ your lives. Have a little faith."

"Faith," Rocket grumbled. "Sure."

"The stones," Tony suddenly exclaimed. "Of course! That's how we tracked him down six years ago, right? By tracing the gamma radiation emitted by the Tesseract! F.R.I.D.A.Y., call Banner!"

* * *

 _I cannot believe you really came back here_ , the dark voice continued its relentless, nerve-jangling prattling. _Here of all places!_ _Was there truly no other place in all the Nine Realms you could think of?_

Loki's entire body itched to answer the foul fragment of his mind that had kept him such faithful company during the darkest days of his existence but he forced himself to remain silent. Not that it was easy. He knew that he had been doomed the second he had silently admitted to himself that he should have listened to it—that he had invited the intruder back into his mind like a scorned woman opening the doors to her abusive lover again—but he knew too that his mind also held the key to lock it back out. He just had to be resilient.

 _Resilient? How naïve! You are falling apart as we speak_.

Loki surveyed the coast of Norway from where he was sitting on a rock near the cabin he had followed his brother to a few days earlier, tears burning hot in the back of his throat. A weak, trembling chuckle escaped his lips when he recalled that his very first impulse when Hela had released him and he had looked straight into Thor's eyes, feeling his brother's hands on his shoulders, had been to wrest himself free and crawl back to the pain and the drainage because the pain was familiar. When Thor had made his speech about belonging, his words lulling Loki into some sense of—false?—security, he had thought himself safe for the moment while simultaneously trying to persuade himself that it would not last. That whatever this was, it would only be temporarily. That he would go back, one way or the other. Yet somehow, things had taken a turn for the better and he had foolishly allowed himself to believe that this time, things could truly work out. He could neither comprehend nor explain why but for the first time since he had learned about his true parentage all those years ago, he had felt mostly at ease in Thor's presence since they had rejoined forces. By all the Realms! His brother had assured him that he did not think him weak. He had defended him in front of the assembled Avengers. He had chosen him over them multiple times. He had expressed a sincere interest in his sorcery skills. That could not have been all a lie, could it? Surely, there must be some kind of explanation—

 _There is no explanation_. _He betrayed you_ , snarled the dark voice. _He bargained away your_ _ **life**_ _!_ _He clearly does not care whether you live or die!_

Loki buried his head in his hands, trying to stifle the sobs that were building up inside his chest.

 _Go on, cry_ , the voice growled. _Cry as you always do, you pathetic little wimp_.

No, he would not cry. He only had a little more than twenty-one hours left before Hela would come to reclaim him and he needed all his energies to concoct a scheme to save his life. He could not afford to break down now. He needed to think. The Aether was already stirring inside of him, gnawing on the seal of his protection spell now that his mental defenses were beginning to crumble. He needed to think so badly but his mind was drawing a blank and he was still so incredibly hungry.

 _You really_ _thought you did not need me anymore_ , the dark voice continued cheerfully, scathingly. _You thought you could have your try at heroism, earn their gratitude and finally be free of who you really are_. _How pathetically childish is that?_

"Stop," Loki finally relented, his voice hoarse with the tears he was holding back. "Just stop."

It did not. It never did. _They do not care about you, Loki_. _No one ever did_. _Not your fathers, not Thor, not the Avengers, not Tony Stark_. _When will you ever understand that_ _ **no one**_ _cares for you the way I do? I protected you_. _I kept you safe_. _I made you strong_. _Thor is the one who betrayed you_ ; _who lied to you_ ; _who condemned you to death_. _The only reason he brought you back is because they could not defeat Thanos without you_. _They would have traded your life for those of their friends without blinking as much as an eye!_

The tears were flowing freely down his cheeks now, every fiber of his being aching with the betrayal of his oh so virtuous brother.

 _See? You cannot trust them_.

"I cannot trust you either," Loki whispered as he came to realize something that had never occurred to him before even though it was blatantly obvious now that his subconscious had connected the dots. The dark voice had always tried to make him believe that everyone hated him but there was one person whose love and loyalty it had never called into question. "You need to go."

 _And what will you do without me, hm?_

"Seek the advice of the only person who ever truly cared for me," Loki replied. "Which is not _you_! You are not even a _person_. You are nothing but a product of my mind and you will leave! You will leave _now_!"

The voice growled in protest but it fell silent eventually when Loki turned his attention away from its foul counsel and towards the memory of Odin, who had sat down with him and Thor on the same coast shortly before his passing. _Your mother, she calls me_. _Do you hear it?_

Loki gulped as he thought of the words Thor had said to him a few days ago. _I figured that if there was one place that might give us some closure, it would be the place of our ancestors_. _Maybe there's something more to this than we actually had time to think about_.

Maybe, Loki conceded, his brother had been right. Could it really be a coincidence that he had retreated to Norway after Thor's betrayal only to realize that the dark voice had never once made him question the love of his mother?

Loki shot to his feet and opened the pocket dimension containing the Infinity Gauntlet with the Soul Stone on impulse. He reached for it, pulled it out and turned it over in his hand. After what the Soul had done to Tony Stark, he knew better than trying to touch the stone. He sat back down on the rock, gently placing the gauntlet on his knees. He was under no illusion that he was strong enough to command the Soul Stone after all the magic he had wielded earlier that day but he knew that he must try, for he was utterly lost and painfully aware that any decision made in his current state of rage, confusion and despair would only bring more destruction in its wake.

He closed his eyes, focusing his own magic on the signature of the Soul Stone, silently willing it to release the spirit of his mother. Even though Frigga did not reside in the Soul World like those poor creatures the Avengers had lost, the stone still ruled over the energetic manifestation of a being's essence that people across the universe had come to refer to as the soul. Since its powers were limitless, Loki figured, they would reach as far as into Valhalla. The Soul resisted him with all its might, as he thought it would, and as weak and hungry as he was, he would have given up if the fierce longing for the comfort of the one person whom he was sure would never betray him had not fueled his strength in a way he had thought unthinkable.

After a few moments, the Soul relented and the air molecules around him began to shift, sending waves of energy hurtling past his face. Loki rose, his heart almost beating out of his chest as the gauntlet slipped from his trembling hands and fell onto the grass with a soft thud. The invisible molecules began to take form, glimmering in a faint orange, and then morphed into the shape of Frigga.

Loki was instantly reminded of his nightmare and her festering face with its cold, dead eyes and the snakes creeping out of them. He gasped for breath, tears welling in his eyes.

"Loki!" Frigga exclaimed as she rushed towards him. Before he could utter a single word, she put her arms around him and swept him into a tight hug. For a moment, they merely stood there, locked in an embrace long overdue, Loki weeping against his mother's chest.

Eventually, she loosened her hold on him, her hands traveling to his upper arms and squeezing them gently. "How did you do that?" asked Frigga, an expression of curiosity mixed with pride flickering through her blue eyes.

 _How did I do what?_ Loki wanted to ask but as soon as he had voiced the question in his head, he realized what she meant. She was not merely a spirit. She was almost corporeal. He glanced at the Soul Stone locked inside the scorched Infinity Gauntlet and his shoulders shrugged almost of their own accord. "How am I supposed to know?" Loki asked on desperate chuckle, a tear tickling his cheek. "It is not as if I have access to half of what is going on in my mind."

Frigga smiled at him and the warmth in that smile nearly undid him. "I am so sorry," Loki hurried to say, almost choking on the words. "I should never have … I never meant to …"

"It was not your fault, Loki," Frigga said softly, her hands cupping his face and tracing his razor-sharp cheekbones before her fingers caught a strand of his hair, twisting it absentmindedly. "I was destined to die that day."

Loki could not find his voice.

"Odin and I have lived our lives. It is your time now," said Frigga. "Yours and Thor's."

"But," Loki stammered, words still failing him.

"After everything that you survived, you still doubt yourself," she continued with a sad smile. "There is so much strength inside of you, Loki. Just look at me." She grabbed his shoulders once more and gave them a reassuring squeeze. " _You_ brought me here. There is so much you can do, so much that your brother can do, so much that you can do _together_ , and yet you both still struggle to accept who you can be."

"But Thor …" Loki's voice trailed off.

"I have seen everything," Frigga continued, absolving him from having to tell her what had transpired. "Thor made grave mistakes and a lot of them. So have you. So have all of us. But your brother would never want you to suffer. He would never want _anyone_ to suffer. The only reason he agreed to that bargain is because he truly thought you would set this right." She smiled. "That you would set it right _together_. He needs you, Loki. Right now, you are the stronger one and he has so much faith in you. And so do I. It is about time that you have some faith in yourself."

A new stream of tears flowed down his cheeks. "What am I supposed to do?"

Frigga smiled, her own eyes glazing over. "You know what you are supposed to do."

Loki gulped. "No, I don't. How am I supposed to know? How am I even supposed to know who I _am_ or what my role in all of this is?" He had never consciously considered these questions before but now that his mind had latched onto them, they took on a life of their own. "I have failed at being Laufey's son, I have failed at being Odin's son, I have failed at being a hero, I have failed at being a villain; I have failed at everything."

"That is because you have always tried to be someone you thought you were supposed to be," Frigga said softly. "I have tried to make you see that when you were still a child but you never listened to me. The measure of a person is _not_ how well they succeed at being who they are supposed to be but how well they succeed at being who they truly are."

"And what would that be?" Loki asked, inwardly listing all the things he heard the Avengers say about him within the past few days. _You really are crazy_. _You are still a liar with an unstable mind who makes decisions on a whim that benefit only yourself_. _A psychopath to fight a psychopath. Icicle's mind over here comes up with stuff that might turn out to be quite useful if we scrape off all the layers of crazy_.

"First of all, you are my son," Frigga replied with a smug smile. "Which should make everyone tremble before you," she continued in a mock growl that elicited a genuine laugh from him. "But you are also a powerful sorcerer who is both Jotun and Asgardian, combining the strength of both races within himself. You are a shapeshifter and"—she flicked a glance at the gauntlet lying at their feet—"as it turns out, a wielder of all six Infinity Stones. But most importantly, you are Loki, and while you might still think of that as a curse, I think of it as a blessing. Embrace your chaos, my love. Turn it into something spectacular instead of something destructive and you will see that you have not been cursed but truly gifted with that mind of yours."

Her words lifted a weight off his chest that had sat there for so long that he had forgotten he was not supposed to feel so restless all the time. Loki smiled through his tears, savoring the love she still felt for him, had always felt for him, despite everything he had done. But with the emotional relief came exhaustion and the mental power he wielded over the Soul Stone began to dwindle. Frigga began to fade. "But what am I going to do?" Loki hurried to ask. "How do we stop Hela or Nemesis? How do we—"

"You do not need to stop Nemesis," said Frigga. "You need to find her."

"For what purpose? And how are we—"

"I cannot tell you that," Frigga interrupted him softly.

"Why not?" Loki asked warily. "Father told Thor to destroy Asgard, no? Why can you not grant me the same favor?"

"Because Thor was at a loss but you, my son," Frigga said, her hands cupping his chin for the last time, " _you_ already know the answer."

Loki swallowed when he sensed what was coming next. "So, this is goodbye then?"

Frigga gave a nod. "Thank you for this."

"No, thank you, _Mother_ ," Loki whispered, suddenly remembering their last conversation. "You are my mother. You always have been."

"I know," Frigga mouthed and pulled him into a final embrace. Loki held on to her, reaching for her essence, trying to absorb a trace of her signature into his own magic.

"I am proud of you. Both of you. Tell your brother that if you can," she whispered and, then, she disappeared, leaving Loki with nothing but empty air between his fingers.

"Goodbye, Mother," Loki whispered, his faint words trailing away like smoke dispersing into the air.

* * *

 _Author's note :_

 _\- I originally had every chapter between 3k and 3.5k words but now they are somehow getting longer. My OCD doesn't really like this fact but maybe you are so absorbed in the story that you don't even notice. In that case, just ignore my perfectionist comment._  
 _\- Credits for this chapter have to go to Akira, who suggested to me that Loki might summon Frigga's spirit for counsel. I had originally planned to let him figure it out all by himself but I think, it turned out much better this way and who would be foolish enough to pass up an opportunity to write Frigga into a story? I certainly welcomed it after the Dark World AU I published last week and I hope you did too. So, thank you, Akira, also for inspiring the line about every conversation with Loki being like trying to diffuse a bomb, which is spot-on._  
 _\- One last little thing: Clint and Natasha following Bruce to Wakanda might seem weird considering that Shuri said only those who would not condemn her soul to hell were still welcome in Wakanda and Nebula basically exposed Clint by saying he would have done the same thing, but I think Clint is really still in the mindset to blame Thor and Loki (and now Valkyrie) for everything because his grief prevents him from seeing clearly and, well, Nat would follow him._  
 _\- I also enjoyed writing Rocket losing his shit at least a little after he has been one of the only ones to keep his cool through all of this so far._  
 _\- That said, see you soon (I hope). Much love xxx_


	40. Your savior is here!

#40

"The pocket dimension might be veiling the signature," Bruce was informing Tony, his gaze focused on a computer program that Thor had not understood six years ago and certainly could not hope to begin to understand in his heightened state of panicked restlessness now. "This is an optimized program specifically designed to trace the gamma radiation emitted by the Tesseract or, rather, the Space Stone and, according to the program, the stone is currently _not_ on Earth."

"I mean, it could be," said Shuri. "But as long as it resides in the dimensions created by Loki, it is …"

"His magic cloaks it," Wong finished for her.

"But Loki could also have taken himself—and the stones—to God knows where, right?" asked Steve.

Bruce's shoulders sagged, his gaze flitting to Thor. "Yeah, that too."

"Which is probably what he did," noted Okoye, who had not left Shuri's side since Thor had set foot on Wakandan soil. He suppressed a scream when the fierce warrior woman scrunched up her nose and continued with, "Traitors will be traitors. I don't understand why you would still have faith in him."

"Because he helped us before?" Tony asked pointedly, making it clear that the Avengers remained divided into two opposing camps. Wong had opened a sparking orange portal to Wakanda to them all after Tony had called Bruce with the suggestion to track the Infinity Stones but, even though Shuri had reluctantly granted Thor permission to enter her home, half of the Avengers were still looking at him as if they would love to see his body go up in flames. Thor was painfully aware that they were only suffering his presence because he had once been one of them, because he knew his way around Niflheim and because he might be able to give them information about Hela. "You weren't there," Tony continued. "He helped us kill Thanos and retrieve the stones, and then he healed us. All of us."

"I know it is hard to understand," Steve said solemnly, "but sometimes people _do_ change."

"Of course they do," Natasha agreed. "I am the first person to admit that. But I just don't understand why Thor isn't out there looking for him," she went on with a suspicious glance at the Stormbreaker by the Thundergod's side.

 _Because even if I wanted to_ , thought Thor, his heart heavy with shame, _I could not hope to muster the mental energy to summon the Rainbow Bridge in my current state_. He could not admit to that, of course, and so his friends replied for him.

"Because he doesn't know where to start looking," Rocket grumbled just as Tony said, "Because he'll come back."

"If you really believe that, you're a _fool_!" Pepper yelled at Tony, who startled at her desperate hostility but said nothing.

"I know most of you don't believe me," Thor said through clenched teeth, "but he will. Just you wait."

The others punished him with chastising glares and disparaging snorts, which caused the Thundergod's skin to crawl, and then turned their attention towards the second mission that was underway in Shuri's laboratory. Upon their arrival, the young Wakandan scientist had presented her idea to recreate six vibranium copies of the stones based on the molecular structure that they had earlier used to replicate the Mind Stone and then disguise them as the six Infinity Stones with the help of Wong's magical abilities to generate holographic illusions by conjuring Eldritch Magic formations. The general idea was they would use the fake stones to renegotiate the bargain and buy the Avengers' freedom at least while Thor's and Loki's souls would still go to Hela because "Being gods and all, you will have way more chances than we do to get out of this mess alive." Driven by his guilty conscience, Thor had agreed to this plan at once—and so had Valkyrie—but even that had not been enough to earn the forgiveness of some of them.

 _And how could it, really?_ Even if the Avengers managed to save themselves that way, it would not undo his betrayal. Apart from that, Thor knew that their chances of success to win against Hela with that plan were slim to none because, apparently, the process of producing building vibranium replicas of the stones took an awful lot of time. Thor had presumed they would be able to do it quicker this time after already having managed to do it once but it turned out that Shuri had initiated the process an hour before they had arrived and the first stone was still not even remotely finished. Yet, even if they against all odds managed to complete all six stones in time, Thor also knew that Hela was far too smart to fall for a deception as basic as this and would probably claim their souls anyway. But he neither had the heart to destroy their hopes nor did he wish to spark more ill among them, which was why he was keeping his doubts to himself.

Shuri's laboratory remained tensely silent as the mortal machines whirred with their respective attempts to recreate the stones and locate the Space Stone, everyone seemingly afraid that they could miss a vital improvement once they opened their mouth.

Another hour ticked by and the Avengers grew increasingly restless, urging Thor once more to search for Loki with the help of the Bifrost, to which he argued that if he did that, they would relinquish all control and did they really want _that_? It turned out that none of them did, and Nat and Bruce even rewarded his token to stay with them to take the blame even though he had no real reason to endure their hostility with silent—albeit reluctant—appreciation. Two more hours ticked by and Thor's belief that his brother was truly going to come back began to crumble, sending his whole body into a state of panic for the millionth time. Three more hours ticked by and the anger of Clint and the others completely evaporated into a soul-crushing apathy. Four more hours ticked by and Rocket fell into screaming fit, which sent all of them into a frenzy. They tried to calm each other with words but those attempts failed miserably and erupted into screams of despair, catching them all in a sticky web of mutual recrimination.

"Wait, we have a signature!" Bruce suddenly exclaimed into the cacophony of accusations filling the room. "The signal comes from Norway."

All eyes darted to Thor. "Seriously? You couldn't figure _that_ one out?" Tony asked with a wary glance at him. "How dense are you?"

Before Thor could answer, Bruce gasped. "It is no longer … What the hell? We lost the signature again. How is that even—"

Before the scientist could finish his sentence, the air began to hum with an invisible current of magic and everyone tensed with uneasy appreciation. After a few heartbeats, the air started shimmering in a bright kingfisher blue and then a portal opened right in front of them. They all held their breaths until Loki walked through the magical gateway in black pants and a dark green shirt, his arms outstretched and his hair tied into a messy bun. "I would say 'Your savior is here'," he jested, his eyes sparkling like two gleaming emeralds, "but I hate to use the same line twice."

Valkyrie half-sighed with exasperation and half-laughed with relief while Bruce and the others merely stared at the change in Loki's attire and demeanor. Nobody made a move except for Okoye, who had not yet overcome her suspiciousness of him and raised her spear, pointing it right at Loki's chest.

"Oh, please," Loki scoffed and, with a snap of his fingers, her weapon disintegrated into a million tiny grains of sand, which trickled to the floor. "We do not have time for such idiocies." Okoye merely gasped in astonishment as Loki walked up to Valkyrie and thrust the Space Stone into her hands. "Here, take it for safe-keeping. As a sign of my good will."

"I _told_ you!" Thor exclaimed and then turned towards Loki. "I am so sorry, brother. I swear I never meant to—"

"Well, I suppose it is not _entirely_ your fault that you have been born without the ability to use what scarce intellectual resources you possess in times of pressure," Loki replied nonchalantly and despite his brother's insult, Thor felt a weight lifting off his chest.

"Where have you been?" asked Tony before his brother had a chance to address them.

"Seeking counsel," Loki replied curtly, a sleek grin stealing onto his lips. "And after that, well, I helped myself to a decent meal."

"You helped yourself to a _decent meal_?" Shuri echoed. "While we have been trying to figure this out?"

"Do not make the mistake to assume that I did not also try to 'figure this out'," Loki replied. "But it just so happens that I have been starving for days and can only run on empty for so long. Besides, I can hardly hear myself think in your company. You are very much like a bunch of chickens that have just been beheaded."

"Maybe that's because we're gonna die in less than sixteen hours!" Rocktet snarled at him.

"And so am I, in case you have forgotten that tiny little detail," Loki retorted, casting a punitive side-glance at Thor. "Through my brother's mindless doings, our fates are for once inextricably intertwined, which is why I would suggest you suppress your disapproval of my colorful personality long enough to listen to me."

Tony's forehead twisted into a frown. "Are you on drugs?" Thor could not blame him for the question. Loki could go from descending into an emotional breakdown to narcissistically celebrating his shrewd cleverness to swaying near the existential abyss again within less than five minutes and if Thor had not figured out how this was possible after a millennium, how could he ever expect his friends to do so?

"I might as well be," Loki quipped before he focused Steve and held out his hand. "Shall we try this again, Captain?"

Steve hesitated for the fraction of a second but then he took Loki's hand and shook it firmly. "What is your plan?"

"Hold on," said Okoye with a glare at Loki. "Why should we listen to you?"

Loki rolled his eyes. "Ah, I see. A new face has emerged, which, I suppose, makes it _absolutely_ necessary to bring up my past crimes again. Let me do it for you, Miss. Yes, I attacked New York with an army of aliens. Yes, I was a _very_ bad boy and I am sure I will pay for it—again—when I die permanently but today is not going to be that day. Today is the day you are going to join forces with me. Why? Because you are desperate. Because you are running out of time. Because you could never be sure that whatever it is you are trying is actually going to work." A smirk lit up his entire face. "Now, I cannot know how you handle things in your world, but according to my vast life experience, people usually listen to the person who has power, knowledge and a plan. And just in case there is still any doubt as to who that person is," Loki concluded, pointing his thumbs towards his chest, "this would be _me_."

Thor felt his lips break into a proud smile as his brother's words finally released his heart from the grip of anxiety.

"Hallelujah," said Clint but there was not a trace of anger or even hostility left in his voice. His resentment towards Loki had been entirely absorbed by misery and fear.

"Avengers Assemble," Rocket cried out sarcastically and threw his fisted paw into the air. "Yay!"

"We listen," Shuri decided with a wary glance at her machinery and Okoye did not contradict her Queen. Wong and Pepper nodded their silent agreement. Natasha exchanged a quick glance with Clint and Bruce, and then nodded as well. "Consider us assembled."

"Have you found someone to replace you?" asked Nebula.

"Replace me?" Loki echoed, his eyebrows crawling up his brow. "What are you talking about?"

"Valkyrie suggested that we might be able to renegotiate the terms of the bargain by offering Hela a soul she would want more than yours," Steve explained.

Loki surveyed Valkyrie with a glimmer of appreciation in his brilliant green eyes. "This idea is not even that foolish."

"Do you have anyone in mind?" Tony asked. Loki's lips curled into grin, which he tried and failed to suppress, a chuckle escaping his mouth.

"What?" Thor asked with a feeling of unease creeping up on him.

"Nothing," Loki replied, forcing the grin on his lips to disappear. "While this is a good plan in theory, I am afraid we do not have the time to put it into practice."

"What is _your_ plan, then?" Bruce wanted to know, impatience creeping into his voice.

"It is multilayered, for it involves three stages," Loki began and then waited until he had everyone's attention. "First, we must outsmart Hela," he continued, counting the stages off his fingers. "Second, we must reclaim the seventh stone because—and I know this a rare occurrence indeed—Thor has been right when he said that we need to free Nemesis."

"Who told you that?" asked Steve.

"The wisest person in all of Asgard," Loki answered softly and Thor's stomach gave a violent lurch when he realized that there was only one person whom his brother would refer to as such.

"I thought Asgard was gone," Pepper interjected.

"Our spirits are never truly gone," Loki told her. "Otherwise you would hardly be able to save your friends. Which brings me to the third stage: You wish to undo the Snap. As it turns out, all three of those are connected."

"How?" asked Shuri.

"As we have established earlier, none of us will be able to snap without dire consequences. Not to mention that we do not have enough time left to forge a weapon that could absorb the power of all six stones. And even though we have the Soul Stone, we could never hope to wield enough power over it to release all the people you have lost. Forcing it to release even one spirit takes tremendous effort and I cannot even begin to fathom how many beings have lost their lives during the Snap." Loki glanced around. "Can you?"

They all shook their heads as Thor's mind desperately latched onto what his brother had said about the power that it took to release even one spirit. Had he really …? Was it possible that he had …?

"We need the seventh stone if we wish to command the Soul to release those who lost their lives," Loki continued, oblivious of Thor's mental gymnastics. "We also need the seventh stone if we want to trick Hela out of her bargain, for as long as she is in its possession, she will be able to reverse the magic of the others."

"How would we trick her out of her bargain?" Natasha asked.

"By changing the fabric of reality," Loki replied. "By actually fulfilling the bargain."

"I don't understand," mumbled Bruce.

"Thor is going to fulfill the bargain. He is going to kill me. At least, that's how it will look like to her once we can avail ourselves to the Reality Stone's power in her presence."

"She is never going to fall for an illusion of me killing you," Thor protested.

"Not an illusion," Loki corrected him. "You are actually going to kill me in a reality created by the Reality Stone. Which is why we must coerce Hela into offering us the seventh stone first or else she is indeed going to see right through everything we might try."

"Can you still wield that Aether thing though?" Rocket asked warily. "Isn't it gonna try to, you know, take possession of you or whatever?"

"I have regained my strength," Loki said by way of an answer.

"How would we convince her to offer the seventh stone to us?" Nebula asked.

"By using her greatest weakness against her, of course," Loki answered triumphantly, turning towards Thor. "Tell them what Hela's greatest weakness is, brother."

"Her insatiable hunger for destruction?" Thor guessed. "Her bloodlust?"

Loki looked sorely disappointed when he shook his head. "No. Her greatest weakness is the same as ours."

Thor was at a loss for a moment but Valkyrie snorted, her face darkening. "Odin," she concluded. "And the insatiable hunger for his approval."

Loki smiled mirthlessly. "We have a winner."

The Avengers shot each other looks of confusion and agitated murmurs erupted around the room. "Hold on!" Tony exclaimed at last. "What you're saying is that we're gonna try to actually beat the fucking Goddess of Death by using her _daddy issues_ against her? That is the most ridiculous thing I've—"

"The mind is a fragile thing, Stark," Loki interrupted. "Believe me when I say that it takes only the slightest of taps to tip it in the wrong direction. All you need to know is where to tap it."

"What makes you so sure that you know where that is?" Shuri asked.

Loki gestured towards Thor. "Because we have all been there. Our father banished her, he banished him and he would have banished me if I had not jumped first. And all of the actions that have led to our respective punishments were born out of the desire to rise in his estimation."

"He really was a dick," Valkyrie concurred.

"And despite everything, you still try to please him," Nebula whispered, almost to herself. "Even when you know he is dead."

"I get that," Tony assured them. "It's actually scary _how much_ I get that but after everything Bruce told us, Hela's a cold-blooded force of evil. What if she is less of a crybaby than you two and doesn't give a shit about what Odin thinks of her?"

"Everyone born of Asgard gives a shit about that," Valkyrie replied.

"How you can be so sure of that?" asked Steve.

"Because we are Asgardians?" Thor offered as he suppressed the desperate giggle that was building up inside his throat in response to the ridiculousness of the entire situation.

Loki gave a nod. "I could not have said it better myself."

"I just hate how those old myths turn out to be true again and again and again," Pepper mumbled. Apparently, her words had not been meant for everyone but now that they were all looking in her direction, she continued in a small voice. "We thought those tales were nothing but tales but even if the stories themselves are made up, what constitutes your characters obviously isn't." She looked at Loki. "You are the God of Mischief. You are the one who brings chaos and then makes it right again."

"I will try," Loki said with a shrug. "If you let me."

The others nodded in varying stages of conviction.

"So, what are we gonna do? And what about the stones?" asked Rocket with a side-glance at Shuri's work place.

"What stones?" asked Loki and the others filled him in on Shuri's plan. Loki listened to their words and remained silent for a few moments after they had finished, pretending to think the idea over with what Thor could tell was a mock frown. "I am sorry to say this," Loki finally said, voicing the doubts that Thor had been unable to voice earlier, "but Hela is never going to fall for that."

"But she is going to fall for whatever you have cooked up?" Natasha asked.

Loki flashed her an encouraging smile. "I am fairly certain that she is, yes."

"What are you going to say to her?" asked Tony.

"I cannot tell you that," Loki said and the look in his eyes was almost apologetic. "If I did, I would jinx it."

"So, we're just gonna follow you to Niflheim and let you do all the talking?" Rocket asked, his gaze searching for the eyes of the others. "Am I the only one who thinks that's a liiiittle risky?"

Thor thought of all the enemies Loki had lured into surrender with his magic and his silver tongue over the years and felt a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "I dare say that if we can't hope to win through fighting prowess, intellectual prowess is all we have left."

"And if the mythology is actually right, intellectual prowess is Loki's sharpest weapon," Pepper mumbled.

"Who would have guessed that those absurd stories have a merit after all?" Loki smiled. "But just to be clear, you cannot go to Niflheim. It is no place for mortals. The cold would rip your lungs apart if you as much as tried to draw a breath. No living being is supposed to enter the Realm of the Dead."

This statement rekindled the distrustfulness of the others and a torrent of questions regarding whether the Asgardians really believed that the Avengers would let the Gods do this all by themselves poured down on Loki. "Rogers might be fine, I suppose," he conceded. "His body is far more resilient than any of yours." He focused Bruce. "The Hulk would be fine as well but I believe the Beast is still unavailable?"

A look of disappointment washed over the scientist's face. "Yes."

"I thought so," Loki replied, then turned towards Tony. "Depending on the heating capacity of your battle suits, you might also survive. But it is risky."

Pepper opened her mouth to protest even before the answer had left the engineer's lips. "We're gonna take that risk."

"We are," Steve agreed.

"And what are _we_ supposed to do?" Natasha yelled. "Just sit here and twiddle our thumbs while we wait for you to save our _lives_?"

"Unless you want to die from exposure to the freezing cold of the dead," Loki replied, "that is what you will have to do." The room erupted with shouts of protest, which Loki silenced with a wave of his hand. "Just take a few moments to talk it over while I will have a word with my brother."

Loki motioned Thor to follow him and then left the room without another word. Thor gulped and shrugged his broad shoulders in apology at his former allies before he did as requested under the watchful eyes of Valkyrie, a thousand apologies and just as many questions clattering through his head.

* * *

 _Author's Note :_

 _~ First of all, credit where credit is due: The line about the mind being a fragile thing is taken from the X-Men Dark Phoenix trailer where Xavier says, "The mind is a fragile thing. Takes only the slightest tap to tip it in the wrong direction."  
~ Secondly, the main reason I enjoy writing Loki so much has actually ___been_ voiced by Thor in this chapter when he thought about how rapidly Loki can go from emotional breakdown to super sassy and back in 0.5 seconds because his mind is all over the goddamn place.  
~ Thirdly, brownie points go to everyone who figures out whose soul Loki was thinking of (which is not that hard, I guess).  
~ And last but not least, I hope Loki's comeback did not disappoint you, Akira :) Plus, you were right. We **are** getting closer. Stay tuned everyone! xxx  
_


	41. We must rise above ourselves

#41

Loki was leaning against the banister overlooking the Royal Court of the Wakandan Palace when Thor caught up with him. His brother's arms were crossed but despite the fact that his face still looked rather haggard, his hollow cheeks bearing witness to what he had endured after his death, he seemed to be an entirely different person than the one who had fled the Avengers compound in a fit of madness a few hours earlier. If anything, he seemed almost serene and the sight of his younger brother so at peace with the world and himself was so unusual that Thor did not know how to react to it. "Brother, I …"

"I need to know what Hela said to you," Loki demanded as if he had not spoken at all. "Everything could be relevant."

"What do you mean 'everything'?" Thor asked, his heart stumbling in his chest when he recalled the two scathing conversations with his half-sister that he would have loved to forget as soon as possible.

"I need to know everything you talked about," Loki specified and a flicker of annoyance in his green eyes belied his calm composure. "I need to prepare."

Thor harrumphed. "Are you sure this is—" _Necessary_ , he wanted to add but felt foolish enough to stop himself before he could utter the adjective.

"Despite your state of grueling desperation," Loki began and Thor winced at the merciless assessment, "I am sure it will not have slipped your attention that the success of my plan to pull all of our butts out of the fire depends on me having any additional information about Hela at my disposal that _you_ alone can give me. So, if it is not too much trouble for you?" Loki continued, leaving the rest of the question implicit as he stretched out his hand, palm outward, a pretentious smile plastered on his face.

Thor nodded with a gulp before he lunged into the tale of how they had come to agree upon the initial bargain after Hela had told him that Loki's soul was so valuable to her because it was so wonderfully full of agony and pain. His brother did not as much as flinch and so Thor continued with how Hela had appeared once again to remind him that he did not have what it took to be King of Asgard because of his soft spot for Loki and then to claim the Infinity Stones because they were enraging the magic that kept the universe alive.

"Soft spot," Loki echoed as he was pondering on his brother's words, his teeth pulling at his lower lip. "What exactly did she say about the stones?" he asked at last.

"That we were disrupting the order of the universe by trying to right an intergalactic wrong," Thor recited, "and that our tampering with the Infinity Stones was going to bring forth Ragnarok and that that there was more to Ragnarok than the destruction of Asgard, which we foolishly assumed to be the extent of the prophecy."

Loki's brilliant green eyes lit up when he heard this, the shadow of a smirk playing on his thin lips.

"What?" Thor asked but Loki did not pay heed to his question. "Did you have the impression that she knows everything there is to know about the stones and Nemesis?" he asked instead.

Thor's shoulders sank. "How am I supposed to know what she knows? She seemed taken aback when I first asked her if she knew what that stone was but then she went on to explain to me that it hosted a larger realm and … " Thor's voice trailed off as a wave of realization washed over him with such a force that his knees almost buckled.

"What?" Loki asked and even though Thor felt the juvenile urge to disregard his brother's question as he had disregarded his, he continued all the same. "I asked her what kind of realm it was and she basically asked me if I couldn't figure it out, with her being the Goddess of _Death_ and all."

Loki gave a tiny, hardly perceptible nod.

"But ... I mean," Thor stammered, words failing him. Loki merely raised a brow at him in response and the arrogance in that look caused the words tumble out of his mouth of their own accord. "Do we even have enough knowledge to determine what _any_ Asgardian knew about the Infinity Stones after everything Father has kept from us?"

Loki took his time to reply and when he did, he merely said, "I know everything I need to know."

Thor swallowed. "Which is?"

"Nothing you need to concern yourself with right now," Loki replied. The answer had sounded harsh but his brother's expression softened when he saw the look of distress on Thor's face. "You are in no condition to save anything right now, brother," Loki whispered. "Just trust me to do it this time and I promise you, everything is going to work out fine."

Thor huffed a mirthless laugh at the damnable sequence of words that he had spoken to Loki just before Thanos had attacked them and that Valkyrie had spoken to him when she had tried to comfort him after Hela's second appearance. "You do remember what happened after I said that to _you_ , right?" he whispered, tears welling into his eyes without warning as it finally sank in with an overwhelming clarity that there would be no tomorrow for either of them if they failed this time.

Loki's features softened. He closed the distance between them and gently placed both hands on his shoulders, looking him straight in the eye. "I know you are fraught with doubt, brother. I understand. You have lost so many parts of yourself that you fear you might never come out whole again. I _know_ what that feels like, believe me." Loki smiled but it did not reach his eyes. "Over the course of the last years, I have left so many pieces of my mind here and there that there is no way I can be sure there are enough pieces left to stay sane. Yet, at the same time, I know that this is all I have now and that I must try to live with it. And so must you. You must try to live with your failures. There is _no_ other way. We must try to live on, Thor."

All the pain and guilt he had tried so hard to suppress chewed through his intestines and Thor could not swallow.

"Don't you understand?" Loki continued solemnly. "King of Asgard, Protector of the Realms, Guardian of the Bifrost? This is all you now. Everyone else is … dead. _You_ are Asgard. Well, _we_ are Asgard. Our parents are not coming back. There is no one left but us. We must rise above ourselves because we are the only ones left." Loki jerked his head in the direction of the others. "Well, you and me and your beloved."

"She is not my …" Thor's voice trailed off once more. "What happened to you? Why are you so …" _Sanguine? Unruffled?_ _Optimistic?_

"Remember when you hoped I was going to have an epiphany of some sort in Norway?" A smile tugged at the corners of Loki's lips. "Turns out that was not merely a fool's hope after all."

"You talked to her, didn't you?" Thor's breath hitched. "To Mother?"

"Yes," Loki whispered, reaching for his hand. "Here," he said as he put Thor's palm between both of his and closed his eyes. Thor felt a warmth stream into him and suddenly he saw Frigga standing right in front of him, her translucent frame enveloped in a soft orange glow. "There is so much you can do, so much that your brother can do, so much that you can do _together_ , and yet you both still struggle to accept who you can be," his mother whispered. "I am proud of you. Both of you. It is about time that you have some faith in yourself."

Words failed Thor as he dropped to his knees.

"For some reason known only to Yggdrasil itself, she still believes in us," Loki whispered urgently. "And she is watching us, too. We had better not disappoint her, don't you think?"

"Better not," Thor agreed, a tear of joy spilling out of his left eye as he forced himself to rise to his feet again. "Thank you for this."

"Do not thank me just yet," said Loki.

Thor nodded. "Will you at least let me apologize? I mean, _truly_ apologize?"

"The time for sentimentalities will come soon enough," Loki replied with a slick smile, "but it is not now." He motioned his head towards the room they had left earlier. "Shall we?"

* * *

Half an hour later, Thor stepped through a portal opened by Wong, walking right into the biting iciness of Niflheim flanked by Loki in his Jotun form and Iron Man on his right and Valkyrie and Captain America on his left side. Of course, neither of the others had been content to stay behind, especially not Clint and Natasha. They had voiced their disagreement in many ways and Shuri had even proposed to make the necessary adjustments to her new Black Panther suit but had understood soon enough that there was not enough time left to waste. Eventually, Loki had decided to compromise to appease their apprehension and had handed the Time Stone back to Wong with the words "If something should go awfully awry, you can simply turn back the clock," which had elicited a reluctant consent from the Avengers at last. Thor still felt uneasy with the knowledge that they had the artifact to reverse time in their possession when all of their nerves were that raw, but he tried to console himself with the fact that the wizard would never allow them to use it. Besides, he knew that he needed all of what was left of his mental energy to focus on the task before him.

"I never thought I would come here," Valkyrie was whispering, snowflakes whirling around her face as her gaze traveled up the walls of Hela's lair.

Tony gasped inside his iron helmet as he too gazed up at the massive stone fortress with its two black doors standing at least ten feet high, the motive of the head with its jagged antler pieces obscured by the heavy snowfall. Steve merely stared in awe, his mouth hanging slightly open as his brain seemingly tried to process the fact that the tales about Hel—or the underworld or whatever else the mortals had named it throughout the years—were real.

"Call her," Loki commanded him.

Thor cleared his throat and bellowed Hela's name, the deathly stillness around them swallowing the echo of his voice as it had done the last time when he had set foot in this nornforsaken part of the Realms.

"W-why is t-there no," Steve began but his teeth chattered too heavily and he could not finish the question.

Loki cast the other man a semi-reproachful glance. "Oh dear, I hope I was not wrong about your resilience."

"I-I am f-fine," Steve purported but his lips had already turned a dark shade of blue.

"I think I'm beginning to understand that everything in this place _really_ is dead," mumbled Tony, his mechanical Iron Man voice vibrating not with cold but with fear.

"Hela!" Thor shouted again and, after a few more seconds, the doors creaked open, leaving a tiny crack for them to enter. Without wasting a single thought on it, Thor pushed through and stepped into the tremendous hallway lined with pillars of stone for the second time in only a few days, the others following him cautiously. In the distance, Thor could make out the faintly glimmering green light surrounding the glass coffins that imprisoned the dishonored dead in the throne room. Beside him, Steve was drawing a deep breath of the slightly warmer air inside the fortress.

"This is where you … were?" Tony asked Loki in an oddly creaking voice as his helmet disintegrated into thin air, exposing his bewildered expression, but Loki only gave a shrug in response. "It looks quite different when you are actually dead."

Before the engineer could reply to Loki's rather nonchalant answer, Hela stepped forth from the shadows, an expression of curiosity mixed with irritation and anger stamped across her alabaster face. Steve and Tony, whose helmet rematerialized instantly, froze where they stood. Thor half-expected them to stumble backwards. Valkyrie and Loki each released a taut, sharp breath.

"Are you really that obtuse?" Hela snapped at Thor before her icy stare swung towards Loki, who stood next to him with his back ramrod straight and his feet shoulder-width apart, his eyes glowing like two polished rubies in his sapphire face. "It is still alive." Loki's teeth clenched in rage in response to the vilification but he remained silent. Hela turned towards Steve and Tony, her eyes narrowing to slits. "So are they. This is _not_ what you promised me."

Thor forced a confident smile onto his lips even though his heart was threatening to beat out of his chest. "Yeah, well, we have come to renegotiate."

"Renegotiate?" Hela echoed and her condescending laugh bounced off the walls. "Why would we—" She startled, her lips hanging slightly open as she focused on something that Thor could not see. Finally, her lips curled into a devious grin. "So, you did bring me the stones at least."

Loki had not moved as much as an inch but the dark magic of the Aether was crackling all around him now, casting a reddish glow upon his blue skin, answering to the invisible energies hissing through the air. Now that they were so close to each other, Thor figured, Nemesis was trying to summon her child.

"I will need that back, Laufeyscum," snarled Hela.

"Not a chance," Loki replied calmly. "The Infinity Stones are not part of the bargain." Hela's lips parted, dissent darkening her ice-blue eyes, but Loki continued before the Goddess of Death had a chance to voice her objections. "They never have been."

"No?" Hela laughed but there was an edge to the sound. "Why ever not?"

"Because I am relatively sure that, when Odin thought of that law, he imagined the bargaining parties to be in their right mind," Loki elaborated and the expression on his face was one of grim determination. "Which was clearly not the case. Therefore, the first bargain might still stand but the second one never stood. The Infinity Stones belong to the Avengers."

Hela shrieked with laughter. "You seek to prevail against me on mere technicalities? Don't you have anything else on offer?"

"I do, actually," Loki replied unperturbed and Thor felt as if someone had placed Mjölnir onto his chest when his brother continued. "Apart from that tiny little detail, Asgard is no more. The Realm Eternal vanished into dust. The Allfather is dead."

"We all know that," Hela commented, her voice dripping with arrogance.

"Of course we do," answered Loki cheerfully. "And I am sure all of us know too that the only reason Asgardian laws ever became effective was because Odin announced 'So be it!' in that self-regarding way of his at one point or the other." Hela's jaw worked but she said nothing and so Loki continued. "So, my dear, well, not-really-sister, what makes you think that the law declaring that an oath given to one God by another is binding is still effective now that he is gone? Now that the Odinforce has dispersed across the universe? Now that you are confined to this nornforsaken place because Surtur actually killed you and you are actually dead?"

His brother's words sounded so convincing that Thor was unable to tell whether they truly were a lie. Could he have actually worried over nothing? Could it be that Hela was not even in a position to claim what he had so foolishly promised her? His sister's black-painted eyes had narrowed to slits. "You might be smarter than him," she said, glowering at Thor, "which—and I think we can all agree here—is not _that_ difficult because he truly is the dumbest God to ever walk the Realms." She chuckled. "Well, except for Idunn, maybe."

"Would it hurt you to focus?" Valkyrie interjected.

"But whatever it is you have planned to outwit me will fail," Hela spoke over her, "because, in case you forgot, I am in possession of the most powerful artifact in the universe. You could not hope to defeat me even if you besieged my kingdom with the most destructive army in existence!"

"Is that truly the case?" Loki asked, his lips curled into conceited smile.

"Is what truly the case?" Hela barked.

"That you are in possession of the most powerful artifact in the universe?" Loki took a step towards her and Hela's body strained as she poised to attack. "What makes you think that the stone you so desperately cling to really is _that_ powerful?"

Hela's condescending laugh echoed through the room.

"I will tell you where your knowledge comes from," Loki continued. "It comes from Asgardian lore and since that is the case, you might want to reconsider if that is really what you want to rely on. After everything Odin did to deceive all of us, there is no way you can be sure that whatever you currently believe to be true about the universe is actually true."

"You seem to forget something, Laufeyscum," snarled Hela. "I have been inside your head. I know everything _you_ know and there is nothing in that conflicted mind of yours that would allow you to trick me out of that bargain." She glanced from Loki to Thor and broke out into laughter. "To think that the two of you should have been allowed to call yourselves princes of Asgard." The Goddess of Death laughed again, a sound so ugly and so arrogant that it raised the hairs on the arms beneath Thor's armor. "I could crush all of you right here and you would not stand a chance."

"Yet for some reason you aren't doing that," Tony pointed out but Hela did not even acknowledge him.

"You will be surprised to hear that we know more than you think," Loki continued and his brother's words sent a wave of adrenaline surging through Thor's body. "That we actually know more than you do, I dare say."

"Oh, I doubt that," Hela snapped.

"Do you? Well, for once, we know that Odin was in possession of all the Infinity Stones at one point in Asgardian history," Loki began so casually as if this was shared knowledge among all the Aesir. Thor felt his jaw drop. "The evidence used to be everywhere, glaring in our faces for all of our lives. The Bifrost clearly is a culmination of their powers. Heimdall was able to take up his post as the Guardian of the Rainbow Bridge because he had absorbed the power of the Soul Stone. The magic of the Reality Stone was given to the sorcerers, amplifying the rune magic of old. Gungnir was forged for the sole purpose of harnessing the destructive force of the Power Stone inside of it and the list probably goes on."

Hela's eyes had narrowed in guarded suspicion. Besides Thor, Tony and Steve remained rooted to the spot; their eyes open wide as they tried to process the kind of information that would pose a threat to the sanity of any mortal mind.

"You really are a sly bastard," the Goddess of Death said at last, inspecting Loki curiously. "If you had not laid waste to Asgard and weren't so incredibly bothersome, I might even be inclined to like you." She nodded almost appreciatively. "How did you do that, hm? How did you shield all that knowledge that you possess about the Infinity Stones from me?"

"That is going to remain my secret," Loki replied with a shrug. "We also know that it was Odin who spread the rumor that there were only six stones while keeping the seventh sealed away," he continued, his red eyes seemingly ablaze, and Thor felt as stupid as everyone apparently thought him to be. "If I were to hazard I guess, I would say that he kept it sealed deep beneath the vaults of Asgard, hiding it beneath the Odinsword, and then invented the prophecy that so long as nobody moved the sword, the power balance of the universe would remain intact. If anyone were to move the Odinsword as much as half an inch, however, the power balance of the universe would begin to shift, creating cracks in the fabric of reality. Surtur would come and reclaim his blade, heralding the beginning of Ragnarok." He chuckled. "His allies would steal the sun and moon from the sky and devour them whole. Fimbulvetr would befall the Realms. Blah-blah."

Hela cackled. "You think these are all lies?"

"Oh, I _know_ them to be lies," Loki answered. "Just in case you have not gathered as much from feasting on my memories, I earned the title God of Lies, among other things, which is to say I consider myself as some kind of expert on the matter."

Hela snorted a scornful laugh. "An _expert_ on the matter?"

Loki flashed her an equally scornful grin in return. "All that our precious father ever did was to hold the blade of that accursed Odinsword in place by some kind of spell that was linked to his and, by extension, Asgard's life-force. Even if someone _had_ tried to move it, they would not have been able to. But Odin's death and Asgard's destruction broke the spell, which means that after unleashing Surtur upon the Realm Eternal, we released the Seventh Stone, allowing you to have it; which, unfortunately, nurtured your delusions of grandeur."

"That is enough, you miserable Jotun worm!" Hela barked. A fifty-inch jagged blade shot out of the palm of her skin, gleaming like the fangs of a hungry dragon. "Your soul belongs to me and neither your wits nor your false tongue can protect you from the oath your brother so foolishly swore to me!" She examined the blade with a feral glint of anticipation in her icy eyes before she held it out to Thor. "Now, are you going to fulfill your end of the bargain to make him shut up or do I have to claim my prize?"

* * *

 _Author's Note :_

 _~ In Norse mythology, Fimbulvetr is the cataclysmic winter that precedes Ragnarök because no sun ever shines for four complete seasons, bringing forth darkness, destruction and ruin._  
 _~ In both the comics and the mythology, things come into existence when Odin announces that they be so, which is why I included that line here._  
 _~ The significance of the Odinsword and its connection to Ragnarök is told in the 'Tales of Asgard' comics._  
 _~ Oh, and I remember you, Akira, saying that you hoped this time it was going to be Loki encouraging Thor "to get up and face whatever threat they have to face". I hope that the first part of this chapter satisfied your expectations._  
 _~ That said, see y'all later xx_


	42. Nothing but Odin's fool

**It's been a while, I know, but I've had a busy few weeks. But here is my new chapter! Enjoy! (Well, I don't think you will thoroughly enjoy it per se but you know what I mean ...)**

* * *

#42

Every vein in Thor's muscular body tensed into attack mode, his hand itching to take the blade and ram it as deeply into Hela's throat as Nebula had rammed hers into the throat of her father. Beside the Thundergod, Tony, Valkyrie and Steve remained rooted to the spot. Thor could not see Tony's expression beneath his Iron Man helmet but the faces of Valkyrie and Steve were clenched in grim, if slightly fraught, determination.

Loki, however, seemed unperturbed by the blade between them. "Now, now," he mocked, "you made me choke on my own memories for weeks. Can you truly not stand to hear my actual voice for another ten minutes?"

Just as Thor was silently debating on how he could possibly urge his brother to slow down a little, Hela lunged for Steve in a movement so swift that neither of them could react before she had grabbed Captain America by the throat with her left hand, yanking him off his feet. Steve gurgled, struggling against her grasp, his eyes going blank with terror when he realized how strong she truly was.

Loki's lips parted and he held up his hands in surrender but his composure did not slip. "Alright, put him down. We are not finished yet."

"Yes, we are," Hela purred, her eyes lighting up with morbid pleasure when Steve's legs began to kick the air. "If Thor does not kill you as promised, I will crush his throat."

Tony raised his Iron Man blasters at her on pure survival instinct but halted when it dawned on him that he would harm Steve more than he would Hela if he fired his weapons at them. Valkyrie swallowed. Thor's fingers clenched around the Stormbreaker. His chest tightened. Loki's jaw worked, his red eyes flickering desperately.

"You cannot have it both ways," Loki whispered at last. "If you insist on the bargain, you are equally obliged to stick to it."

"Am I now?" Hela giggled. "You have entered _my_ kingdom. I can do whatever I please within in these walls." She examined Steve, whose body was slowly going limp, his lips again a dark shade of blue, and a ferocious grin broke her lips apart as she glared at Thor. "Now, are you going to kill your brother or do I have to—"

"Steve Rogers will go to Valhalla," Valkyrie blurted out without warning before Thor could even finish one coherent thought. "You have nothing to gain by killing him."

Hela hesitated, releasing her grasp around Steve's throat enough for the other man to draw a hectic breath.

"And even if he did not go to Valhalla," said Loki, his voice growing more firm as his linguistic prowess returned, "there is nothing in that damnably righteous soul of his to feast on. If you think that killing him will nourish you, you will soon find yourself starving. Besides, killing him will not change the fact that you still believe Odin's lies."

"Very well," Hela decided after a few beats. She glanced at the blade she was still holding in her other hand and without further warning, she held Steve's body out, chopped off his entire left arm and then threw him at Tony's feet. Steve crumbled to the cold stone floor, his shoulder nothing more than a bloody stump. Tony instantly dropped to his knees and started to seal the wound with his nanotech, mumbling the other man's name, but Steve had slipped into unconsciousness. Thor cried out in horror and shot a panicked glance at Loki, silently asking him whether he could fix the injury with the Reality Stone's help, but his brother merely swallowed. Valkyrie's face screwed up with rage as she sprang towards Hela with an animalistic battle cry and seemingly without any rational thought.

"Valkyrie, _no_!" Loki screamed as Hela tossed away the blade that she had used to mutilate Steve, sending it clattering against stone. Valkyrie did not listen. She lunged at the Goddess of Death, who was conjuring up a horseshoe-shaped weapon with sharp edges at this very moment. Before Valkyrie had reached her, Hela smashed the other woman's body against the nearest column with the invisible force of magic and flung the weapon after her. It closed around Valkyrie's throat, pinning her to the stone column, her feet dangling a few inches above the ground.

Valkyrie's hands shot towards the object instantly, her legs kicking as she tried to free herself, panting with the effort.

"Leave her be!" Thor sprang towards Hela on impulse but he too was smashed against a hard wall—was it even a wall?—of stone before he could reach her. His thoughts were tumbling over themselves as he tried to not cry out in pain.

Hela merely laughed at the agony she had caused. "You stay still, all of you, because if you don't, well, I very much doubt you even want to know what will happen if you don't," she commanded in a honeyed voice before her gaze traveled back to Loki. "Much to my shame, however, I have to admit that I am far too curious to learn what makes you think that _your_ miserable mind has outwitted Odin before I finish up here," she said to him. "Care to elaborate?"

Loki tore his gaze off Steve's unconscious frame and drew a sharp breath. A wave of nausea washed over Thor when he realized that everything depended on what his brother was going to say next.

"Come on, Hela," Loki began, his voice far too quaky, "you and I both know that Odin was better at deception than any giant, including me, could ever hope to be."

"As if this is news to anyone here." Hela's face was unreadable but she picked the sword off the floor, wielding it for emphasis. "Do you _truly_ think you will gain anything by stalling?"

"Not me personally, no," Loki replied, the strength returning to his words. "As outrageous and ridiculous as this may sound, I am for once thinking of the good of the universe rather than of my own skin, which is why we will have to make sure that you realize you are in no position to decide what is going to happen to either the Realms or the stones."

"No?" Hela scoffed. "I am Odin's firstborn! I have every right to—"

"You do realize that this also makes you his first fool, right?" Loki interrupted her with a gleeful grin and Thor's entire nervous system exploded with adrenaline.

"How dare you?" Hela snarled, her fingers curling even tighter around her sword, her knuckles standing out hard and in a ghostly white against her already pale skin.

"How dare I?" Loki echoed. "Let me see. You _assume_ that the rebirth of Nemesis will erase the existence of the universe. You seek to prevent this by taking the stones from us because you think our tampering with the Infinity Stones will cause Nemesis to reappear. While this endeavor honors you, you remain blissfully unaware of two things. One: You apparently do not realize how foolish your plan is in light of the fact that, according to the universe's rumor mill, the reunion of all the stones is going to _cause_ the rebirth of Nemesis. Why would you want all of the stones so close together if the demise of the universe is the outcome you fear?"

Hela's composure slipped ever so slightly. Thor cast a nervous glance at Tony, who was still hunched over Steve's body, and Valkyrie, who was still trapped by Hela's weapon. Every nerve in his own body itched to interfere, to fry Hela with a blast of lightning so fierce that she would burst into flames, but Thor forced himself to remain calm because he knew they would never be able to defeat the Goddess of Death on her own turf and if they failed, Nemesis would be lost to them forever. It was quite possibly one of the hardest things he had ever done.

"And two," Loki continued with a slick smile, his eyes sparkling with malicious humor once more. "You still believe Ragnarok to be real, which gives us all the proof we need that you are still falling for Odin's deceptions even after two-thousand years." Hela was about to protest but Loki did not falter. "Let us face the truth here. There is only _one_ thing we all know for certain and that is that Odin was a ruthless liar and a masterful deceiver. The best in all the Realms, I dare say. He lied to all of us. He lied to you, to Frigga, to Thor, to me, to his counsel; he was never straightforward about matters of this sort. He would have told you anything to stabilize his position as the Allfather."

Hela sniffed. "You're one to talk, Laufeyson."

Loki took a step towards her, his lips curled into a mischievous grin. "Well, let me ask you this: What if the rebirth of Nemesis does not lead to our universe's destruction? Or even better: What if the entire prophecy of Ragnarok was a fiction conceived by Odin himself to keep everyone in check, including you? What if Nemesis has never existed and there were seven stones from the very beginning?"

Hela hissed. "The prophecy foretold—"

"The prophecy foretold a series of events that Odin him _self_ set in motion," Loki reminded her and Thor felt his mouth gape open in surprise. "What better way is there to keep your subjects in line than the threat of certain death? And he found the perfect way to cause just enough disturbance to make them believe it might truly happen, did he not? He took in the abandoned child of his archenemy and raised it as his own while going out of his way to make sure that said child never felt as if it truly belonged. Making sure to fill it with dark thoughts of envy and rage, making sure it would grow into someone that caused just enough turmoil to start whispers among the Asgardians that 'The Tangler' might be real. And if The Tangler was real, so must be the prophecy."

Hela surveyed him suspiciously, her icy blue eyes in narrow slits. "You're bluffing, Laufeyscum. Asgard has fallen. Ragnarok is upon us. The prophecy is real. Whether you like or not."

"Is it really?" Loki asked. "Then how can it be that none of the Gods died the way they were prophesied to die? How can it be that Surtur's fires did not devour _all_ the Nine Realms? How can it be that the three of us are still here? The four of us, if you include the Valkyrie?"

Hela's face had twisted into a deep frown.

"How can it be," Loki finished with a condescending sneer, "that the prophecy you cling to so desperately failed to mention either Nemesis or the most powerful artifact of the universe you assume to have in your possession if it plays _such_ a crucial role in the destruction of the universe?"

Hela said nothing and Thor allowed himself to draw a deep breath. From somewhere beside him, he heard Valkyrie and Tony do the same.

"I tell you why," said Loki. "Because prophecies are just lies told by those in power in order to control the destiny of others. Because prophecies are specific enough not to be discarded and vague enough to associate all sorts of events with it. You knew of The Tangler and Valkyrie did, too, long before I was even _born_. And let us dwell on that name for a second, yes? What kind of name is that? The Tangler?" Loki gave a silvery laugh. "This could have been anyone. A giant, a sorceress, a seer, a Norn—who knows? Odin did not know at the time but it did not matter. He later found someone he could mold into a Tangler alongside his worthy hero son."

Thor felt like he had received his own hammer throw into the gut.

"I should guess he did not know about the full significance of the stones yet either when the prophecy was first delivered but he fixed that too, by telling you the lie of Nemesis's existence while keeping the stone secret from the rest of the worlds, so that nobody would come for it." Loki chuckled again. He was back in his element now, enjoying himself in a way that Thor had not witnessed in what felt like an eternity. And even though he knew that Nemesis was real, he had no trouble believing his brother's words and, apparently, neither had Hela. "After all, who searches for something that doesn't exist, right? But most importantly, he made sure that you, greedy and war-hungry as you were, would never dare to seek out its power or speak of its existence to anyone, lest Ragnarok consumes you with the rest of Asgard. He knew his little girl was eating the lies right out the palm of his hands."

"You shut up now," Hela growled yet, even though her voice was trembling with rage, her body had gone entirely still, as if some unknown force was holding her back.

"But then he banished you, of course, which made you not only furious but also a little suspicious of whatever he told you before he so recklessly discarded you, am I right?" Loki shrugged his shoulders. "And then, even when he knew you were going to come back, he did not bother to tell us about the stone because he knew how it was going to end. He knew that Thor would be powerless against you but he also knew that Thor was going to destroy Asgard and save its people before he let _you_ rule it."

Thor laughed incredulously. "He was the one who suggested to me that we should evacuate our people and destroy Asgard when he appeared to me in a vision."

"See?" Loki giggled. "He knew that after he banished her, Hela would go right after the one thing that he had told her not to touch and that, if you killed her—which I suppose he trusted you to do—she would carry it with her, deep into abyss of Nilfheim, never allowing anyone else to learn of its existence."

"That's enough!" Hela growled, swinging her blade into Loki's direction. "I'm going to rip you apart, you little turd of Jotun dung!"

Loki ducked her blow in one swift motion, that slick smile still playing upon his blue lips. "He knew you well enough to be sure that you would greedily take the stone; assured that you have finally prevailed over him. Assured that, now that he is dead and you are in possession of it, _you_ would think yourself the most powerful being in the universe."

Hela stood frozen, aghast.

Loki straightened his posture and smiled a venomously sweet smile. "The mighty Hela, Goddess of Death, finally holding the key to prevent Ragnarok in her own hands, controlling the fate of the _entire_ universe. I must say, that is quite an omnipotence fantasy you are nurturing there." He giggled. "The only problem is, Ragnarok is _just_ a prophecy and you are nothing but Odin's fool."

"This can't be," hissed Hela but she was clearly under the spell of Loki's silver tongue.

"Oh, it is. Believe me when I say, we have all been there. Well, _I_ certainly have," Loki assured her in a voice dripping with feigned empathy. "Odin was a master deceiver. He had everyone enchanted. It truly is not your fault. But it is never too late to free yourself of his influence," Loki continued, the glint in his eyes having her visibly mesmerized. "To forsake the path he laid out for you."

Hela's face articulated a thousand question marks. Thor held his breath in suspense when he finally realized where his brother was going.

"But I guess that is not what you want, is it?" Loki sneered. "To finally be free of him?"

"Why would you say that?" Hela spat.

"Because you are still holding on to the one last thing that he used to control your actions,'" Loki pointed out. "That seventh stone," he emphasized with a sardonic smile, "is basically a token of your subjugation."

Hela growled like a hellhound. Loki took a step towards her. "Don't you want to be rid of it? Don't you want to be rid of your shame?"

She growled again but Loki had her trapped as if she was an insect caught in a spider web and then his form shifted in shimmers of red and green. His blue skin turned white and wrinkly and a light gray beard grew around his chin. His black hair faded away into the same color and grew to shoulder's length, two thin plaited braids appearing behind his ears. His green cape turned ruby and his black armor golden, the four royal Asgardian disks glittering in the faint light reaching them from the throne room. His red eyes turned white with gray-blue irises, a golden eye-patch materializing around the right one.

"Let go," Loki whispered almost seductively in Odin's deep voice. It was both lulling and threatening, just as Thor remembered it, and he felt a sharp stab of bereavement in his chest. "Let go of your past shame," Odin-Loki continued. "Let go of my hold over you, daughter."

A bone-chilling growl escaped Hela's mouth. "I will _destroy_ you!" she bellowed as she discarded her sword, sending it clattering onto the stone floor once more. The seventh stone appeared between her thumb and index finger, its magic sending a crackle through the air that sounded like the angry hiss of a venomous snake.

Loki's Allfather face remained expressionless even as it became clear that Hela was about to unleash the stone's pure malicious energy against him. _Now brother_ , Loki commanded Thor through some sort of magical thought transference he had never deployed in his presence before.

But there was no time to dwell on that. There was only one thing Loki had instructed them to do before they had entered Niflheim and that had been to seize the stone the minute she unveiled it. Thor did not think twice about complying with his brother's instruction. He shot to his feet, sprang forward and rammed his body into that of his accursed half-sister with full force, sending them both toppling to the cold, hard rock beneath their feet.

The stone tumbled out of Hela's hand and rolled onto the floor. She reacted with lighting speed, tearing away from him and crawling towards it on all fours but Thor grabbed her by the ankle, yanking her back.

Before Thor knew what was happening, Tony was standing above them, firing a blast from his armor at Hela, who startled ever so briefly when the surge of energy hit her. Thor hurled himself onto her, ramming his armored knee into her neck, savoring the noise of crunching bones, and then crawled forward, stretching out his hand to grab the stone.

Behind him, Hela rose with a furious cry, but his fingers were already curling around the stone. He dimly heard Loki screaming in protest in Odin's voice but he whirled around nonetheless, commanding Nemesis to release her magic against the Goddess of Death. Pure energy shot out from his fingers in flashes of gleaming black and, then, his mind went dark.


	43. Loki, God of Drama

**I am going to put a trigger warning here because it is going to be an intense read in all sorts of ways. Just so you know. More notes in the end. "Enjoy!" Or rather: Please, don't hate me.**

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#43

Loki was trying to swallow the sour taste of the scorning words Hela had spoken about his Jotun lineage and those he had spoken to reach deeply into the venomous depths of her mind in their father's deep voice when Thor made his move. The scene unfolded in front of Loki's eyes in that peculiar taking-only-a-fraction-of-a-second-but-feeling-like-an-eternity manner that was particular to moments of great significance. Moments with the potential to change everything; to decide over life and death, heroism and villainy, damnation and salvation, and everything in between. _You are a dramatic little person_ , Frigga had once whispered against his forehead before brushing a soft kiss onto his skin and now that he had absorbed traces of her magic into his, he could hear her as if she was right beside him. _Not everything has to be as dramatic as you make it out to be_.

 _Not everything, no, but this moment surely deserves all the dramatization in the Nine Realms_ , thought Loki as he watched his sweet, simple, stubborn oaf of a brother unleash Nemesis's power against the Goddess of Death as if vanquishing Hela on the battlefield was what they needed to do in order to win. As if vanquishing her could actually kill her in her own Realm. As if they did not have a plan that relied on everything but physical confrontation and raw violence.

Yet, physical confrontation and raw violence were the God of Thunder's combat style and so the stone's pitch-black energy shot out from his brother's fingers with a ferocious crackle, tossing Loki's plan out of the window as the following things happened all at once: Loki heard himself utter a cry of protest that went unheard by Thor even though Tony Stark, who had assisted Thor only moments ago, jumped out of harm's way. Valkyrie broke free of the horseshoe around her neck with a growl. The Reality Stone screeched inside Loki's skull nails-on-a-chalkboard style, clawing at the latch of its magical prison as it tried to take possession of his mind.

 _Not now_ , Loki thought, his head threatening to explode with the frantic search for a way to stop Thor.

Then, the full force of the seventh Infinity Stone crashed into Hela's body and the Goddess of Death let out a bone-chilling howl that was articulating both pain and anger in equal parts before she staggered backwards, grabbing her chest, and then sank to her knees.

Thor was swaying a little when he advanced towards her, ready to deal her another blow even though the force of the stone had singed his hand as well. It was not burned nearly as badly as Stark's but burned it was nonetheless and, suddenly, Loki caught himself reaching for the magic of the Mind Stone with no awareness of how he had arrived at this decision.

"You cannot kill me within these walls," Hela panted, her voice transforming into a breathless chuckle. "This stone will not save your friends, Mighty Thor. I will have my prize, come what may."

"She is right, brother," Loki said, his voice transforming back into his own as his father's guise slid off his skin like a magical cloak. He concentrated on Thor's mind, feeling for the energetic manifestation of his thoughts and his emotions, and sensed his brother's anger. _Now, anger is always useful, is it not?_ Raw, unbridled anger was what Mind loved to feast on the most. By Odin's Raven, Loki knew that well-bred and carefully groomed anger would corrupt even the strongest person into weakness. "You possess what you came here to reclaim," said Loki. "Now, you must honor the bargain."

Thor turned around to face his younger brother. "Be quiet!"

"No, you are the one that needs to be quiet," Loki whispered.

"You're a norndamned liar!" Thor screamed at him, startling both Valkyrie and Stark, who uttered guarded murmurs of panicked confusion and glanced at each other for support. "You promised me you were going to live! You promised me that we could save you! _All_ of you!" Thor howled and his eyes shone brilliantly in the same treacherous blue that had haunted Loki's thoughts every waking and sleeping minute he had spent in the dungeons, obtrusively reminding him of his spectacularly unsightly fall from grace.

Hela heaved her damaged body to her feet and watched them attentively, her breath still coming in sharp, hard gasps.

"Is that part of—" Stark began to whisper to Valkyrie and Loki prayed to whoever cared to listen that she would not reply. She did not. She silenced the self-proclaimed genius by giving him a violent shove.

"But you lied!" Thor howled and there was so much pain in the exclamation that Loki's stomach gave a violent lurch. "Again! You made me believe I could save you even though you _knew_ you were going to die!"

"Please," said Loki softly. "You knew too that this was going to happen. You knew I left behind a great many messes on Midgard and that I needed to clean them up before I return here," he continued, pulling the words right out of his brother's memory of his first visit to Niflheim. "I did clean them up." He flicked a side-glance at Stark and, suddenly, his stomach gave another violent lurch—a much more violent lurch, in fact. He suppressed the urge to gag. "And now, it is time."

"You always end up _lying_ to me!" Thor continued, his voice vibrating with rage, so much rage. His bright blue eyes became even brighter and bluer and lightning began to crackle around his hair, his face, his armor. "You always end up hurting me and this has to stop!"

Next to them, Stark groaned and made a move to spring forward but Valkyrie yanked him back.

"Do you really think I am falling for this?" Hela asked, the strength returning to her voice. "You cannot fool me twice, Jotunscum. He will not do it. You all belong to—"

Thor whirled around and released another blast of Seiðr at his sister, who crumbled back to her feet with another howl of pain. Tears spilled out of his eyes when he turned back to face Loki. "They were right, all of them. You cannot be trusted. You will always hurt me. You will always disappear on me and rip my heart right out of my chest!"

"I know," Loki whispered, tears clawing at his throat. His brother's words were quite possibly the truest lie that had ever arisen from the scheming abyss that was his mind.

"I have to make you stop hurting me, so I finally have a chance to heal," Thor continued, his teeth clenched. He raised his hand, burned by the magic he had wielded, and leveled the weapon at Loki. "I hate you for turning out that way! I hate you for turning from my best friend into the person that always hurts me, always disappoints me, always lies to me! I hate you for making me having to do this!"

Hela gasped. Stark did too. Valkyrie bit her lip.

"Goodbye, Thor," Loki whispered. He closed his eyes, waiting for the impact of the stone's ancient force of infinite destruction, and when it came crashing into his chest, pure black energy sizzling with ice blue lightning, his vision blurred instantly. He heard himself cry out in pain as if through a veil and sank to his knees. This was again so much worse than he had anticipated. The pain was again near unbearable. He again felt a sweeping sense of panic rise up inside of him when his thoughts slipped away from him but this time he would not be subdued. This time, he was strong, determined and well nourished. This time, he would wield the stones instead of succumbing to their power.

As soon as the Mind Stone released Thor from its spell, his brother sprang forward with a howl and swept Loki's body into his arms.

Loki blinked and glanced up, seeing both Thor and Tony Stark there, bent over him, but both of their faces were a blur. He strained to connect to the ancient magic but all the energy seemed to be streaming out of him and then he coughed and, ultimately, his vision went dark. _Again_.

* * *

Thor's lips gaped open in horror when he watched his brother die for the fourth time, when he felt his own body succumb to pain and rage and helplessness for the fourth time as Loki's body grew limp beneath his fingers. He let out a ferocious scream as he cradled Loki's Jotun body to his chest. His head was throbbing violently, his hand was itching and his chest tightened again. He wanted to remember how this had happened but his memory failed him. He wanted to speak but words failed him. He wanted to breathe but his lungs failed him. He wanted to cry but tears failed him too.

"The bargain is fulfilled," announced Valkyrie, her voice cracking.

"Seems that it is," Hela panted with the greatest of efforts as she scrambled to her feet once more. "You and your friends go free," she said to Thor, "I hereby release you from your torment. But Loki's soul," she continued with a ferocious smile appearing on her lips as she slowly walked up towards them under tremendous pain, "is mine as promised."

"No," said Valkyrie as she stepped forth, blocking her way. "It is mine."

Hela's eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"

"I am a Valkyrie," she explained, complying with the only instruction that the Trickster had given her before they had traveled to the Realm of the Dead. "I choose the warriors who may live and take them to the Hall of the Slain, and I decide that you lost all claims to his soul when he sacrificed himself. He died an honorable death and his soul belongs in Valhalla."

"What," Thor stammered. Tony placed his Iron Man hand on his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. "No …"

"No," Hela spat. "You cannot do that."

"I can and I will," Valkyrie said and she would have sounded more determined if her voice had not been so teary. "Face it, Hela. You lost and I am going to take Loki with me. I am going to take all of them with me, in fact."

And before Thor could think, let alone say anything else, Valkyrie retrieved the Space Stone that Loki had thrust into her hands for safekeeping as a sign of his goodwill when he had returned from Norway a few hours, which certainly felt like days, earlier. The Thundergod felt a soothing blanket of magic wrap itself around his body as a blue light teleported them away from this nornforsaken wasteland of ice while Hela's furious cries faded into nothing.

Time slowed down around him. His body became weightless. His thoughts stopped for a while.

And then, suddenly, they were back in Shuri's laboratory and the blinding light from the ceiling sliced Thor's eyeballs in half as soon as he opened his eyes and he was kneeling on the floor, clutching his brother to his chest, and Steve was lying unconscious with his arm chopped off and the arm was not there with them and Tony was removing his helmet and vomiting onto the floor and Valkyrie was crying and the Avengers came rushing towards them, firing alarmed questions in rapid succession.

"What the hell?!" Rocket screamed in a high-pitched voice that was very unlike him.

"Oh my God, what happened?" Natasha cried out. " _Steve_!"

"What did Hela do to you?" Bruce asked, his face a mask of fear.

"Get the healing potion! Quick!" Shuri yelled at no one in particular.

Thor heard them speak but the entire situation was so surreal that he could almost feel his brain liquefy with the effort to process everything. He was still trying to remember what had happened in the time span between him feeling the raw energy of Nemesis's ancient power shooting out of his fingers to fry Hela into oblivion once and for all and Loki crumbling to the ground in front of him. He could not. He knew in the bottom of his heart that he had killed him as promised but the details remained a mystery to him.

"Thor," said Bruce.

The Thundergod looked up, the face of his former friends blurred by his tears. "We reclaimed the stone," he whispered. "At a price." Thor drew a shaking breath and glanced down at Loki's lifeless frame. "I fulfilled the bargain. Just as you wanted."

Bruce looked absolutely horrified. "We never wanted," the scientist began but his words did not matter to Thor. All that mattered was that Loki was lying dead in his arms. _Again_.

"Are they really dead?" whispered Nebula.

"No," said Shuri, who was bent over Steve's body, just as Wong was rushing towards her with a cup filled with the potion.

Thor could not even remember that they had brought it to Wakanda with them but that did not matter either because it would not work. Not on his brother. "Loki is," Thor cried out. "I killed him!"

"No, you didn't," Valkyrie replied but tears were streaming down her face too. "He isn't dead."

Next to Thor, Steve began to cough. _Of course, the heroic soldier gets to live while my brother ..._

"Loki is not breathing," whispered Tony and he too looked genuinely horrified. Pepper had come up to him with an expression of pure terror and desperation stamped across her face but she did not seem to dare to touch him. Rocket, Nebula, Bruce, Natasha, Clint and Okoye were standing in a circle around them, collectively frozen in shock, and even Clint looked horrified despite his earlier words.

"He is not dead!" Valkyrie shouted. "This was his plan. You guys do realize that this was a scam, right? He said Thor was going to kill him in a reality created by the Reality Stone and that is what he did. Hela fell for it and that is all … that is what …" Her voice broke.

Her pain was almost too much for Thor to bear. "If it was a scam, then why are you crying?" Thor yelled at her just as Wong approached them with the healing potion.

"Because," Valkyrie sniveled and then she broke for the first time since Thor had met her on Sakaar a little over two months earlier. "Because he can't be … he can't be dead … If he were, it would break you and I don't … I can't live through this again. I can't bear to see you … Hela keeps taking away the people that mean something to me and I am…" A violent sob tore through her chest. "I can't …"

"Hey," Thor breathed, lifted one arm and pulled her into it, holding her tight over Loki's body while Wong was hovering over them with the healing potion Loki had brewed with so much pride earlier that day—or whenever. It did not matter anymore. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. He cradled Valkyrie to his chest and she cried and he cried and everyone else just stared.

Well, everyone except for Steve, who was slowly opening his eyes, murmuring in confusion and pain.

Time seemed to slow down again. Rather, it seemed to stop entirely. Thor was holding Valkyrie, her body vibrating with sobs against his chest, and that was all there was. He had won but all was lost.

"He can't be dead," Valkyrie sobbed. Thor could not even begin to understand why she was taking this so hard but all the adrenaline had streamed out of her after they had left Hela's kingdom and the traumatic memories she had undoubtedly suppressed and drowned in Sakaarian booze were now breaking free, unraveling the very fabric of her existence.

"Just think about it," whispered Shuri, aghast, "if he created a reality where he died, that means he is actually dead in that reality. And how could he possibly reverse any kind of spell if he is dead?"

Thor heard his own cry of pain from a million miles away.

"But then what," Steve gasped and Thor wanted to feel sorry for him because he had been badly wounded and his nanotech-sealed shoulder looked horrifyingly painful but he could not. All he could think was that it must be some kind of morbid joke played by the Norns that Steve—a mortal; enhanced yes, but still a mortal—had made it out of Niflheim alive when Loki—a giant _and_ an Aesir—had not. This was not right. This was _not_ —

"What did he … even try to … accomplish?" Steve continued in a weak voice.

Thor's lips opened to answer but no words came. Instead, he heard his brother's words echoing through his skull. _I need to prepare … You are in no condition to save anything right now, brother. Just trust me to do it this time …We had better not disappoint her, don't you think? … Do not thank me just yet … The time for sentimentalities will come soon enough but it is not now._

Had Loki known? Was that what he had tried to accomplish? Was that what Frigga had told him to accomplish? Thor gasped for air but his throat was far too dry and his chest was far too tight and air was a long time in the coming and the room was so eerily silent that everything continued to feel surreal and nightmarish.

"Not to be the ass who points that out," Rocket remarked into the crushing silence, "but if he is actually dead, the stones in the pocket dimensions are out of our reach forever."

There were a few murmurs but nobody genuinely said anything to this because they all seemed to agree silently that _nothing_ had meaning anymore.

Until, after an unbearably long time that did not even feel like actual time passing at all, Thor felt Loki's body stir. Thor cautiously whispered his brother's name, afraid that he was only imagining the life that seemed to be filling his brother's lungs once more.

"Well, I knew someone was going to point this out," Loki whispered and his eyelids fluttered open, "but I would never have expected it to be you."

The room exploded into relieved laughter and incredulous gasps.

Valkyrie choked on a sob.

"Dude, what the fuck?" Rocket screamed.

"I thought it was going to be the S.H.I.E.L.D. faction," Loki continued softly. "Well, erstwhile S.H.I.E.L.D."

Words and thoughts were still failing Thor, so he just held Loki tighter than he ever held anything in his life as everyone else around them was recovering from the shock and the strain of the past hours.

"Careful," Loki reprimanded him and then struggled free and to his feet. "You might break me."

"What the hell was that?" Tony screamed at last. "How did you … I mean, why …"

"That was the plan, wasn't it?" Loki answered quietly. "I had to make it real. It was important that you fall for it too. Otherwise, she would have never released Thor from that foolish bargain."

"But how?" asked Tony. "How did you do it?"

"A sorcerer never reveals his tricks," Loki replied.

"How's that for a reveal? If you _ever_ play this trick on me _ever_ again," Thor finally shouted, tears of gratitude streaming down his face as he rose from the floor and punched Loki's arm again and again and again, "I _will_ kill you personally to make sure it is real."

"Deal," Loki replied before he glanced at Tony. "I have to say, though, it was quite a pleasant surprise to see you weep for me, Mr. Stark."

"Don't Mr. Stark me," Tony replied with a teary smile. His stretched out his hand and it hovered indecisively in the air for a few heartbeats but then he pulled Loki into a hug, murmuring his thanks. Loki startled and Thor halfway expected him to push Tony away but he did not. He looped his right arm around the other man and clumsily patted the iron armor on Tony's back while he searched for Thor's gaze, his eyes mirroring nothing but genuine confusion.

"That's what you get for mingling with mortals: Emotions, tears and drama," Thor joked and all the pressure lifted off his chest when it began to sink in that they had succeeded. That he was free. That they had all seven stones in their possession. That they could now call Nemesis and reverse the Snap. That everything was finally going to turn out just fine.

"Let's not forget that you brought all the drama here though," said Shuri but it was endearing rather than hostile.

Loki pushed Tony away and smiled at the young scientist. "Loki, God of Drama. I might just go by this title from now on."

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 _Author's Note :  
_

 _~ Alriiiiight, folks. What do you think now? I mean, I am quite proud of this chapter, to be honest, because it is the first that I have written and edited in less than twelve hours and, oh boy, it had everything from angst to PTSD to a Frostiron hug in the end. It was also one of those that gave me a tight chest and half an anxiety attack while writing it (such as the one where Loki remembers in the cabin) because I was so emotionally invested in every character's pain. Those, who were on Twitter last night, remember me tweeting that I was in the mood for wild berry gin and writing a major character death. Well, I had the gin and wrote the death. Kinda. I guess what I am saying is, you can blame it on the booze.  
~ __But in all honesty, Loki mind-controlling Thor has been the most emotionally challenging to write because that is how Loki has seen himself for the longest time and I think it speaks of unspeakable strength and growth that he could utilize his own misery in such a way.  
~ __The "sweet, simple, stubborn oaf of a brother" is a reference to Agent of Asgard, where Loki calls his brother "sweet, simple Thor" and for whatever reason, this line is staying with me and I have to use it every now and again.  
~_ _The "you're a dramatic little person" is said l_ _ _ovingly by a father to his daughter_ in the movie "When Hitler stole the pink rabbit", which I watched the day before yesterday, and the line made me think of Loki ___immediately_ and I wanted to use it. And then the whole God of Drama thing came to my mind, nicely framing this.  
~ Now, after that shock. Get ready for Nemesis to make her appearance and could it be that she had an influence on Thor too? Stay tuned. See you soon xxx_

 _PS: Please remember to leave reviews. I crave attention as much as Loki does :)_


	44. You lead the way from here

#44

 _God of Drama_ , Loki silently repeated to himself. _That really does have a nice ring to it, does it not? God of dramatic speeches, dramatic entrances, dramatic descents and even more dramatic ascents—yes, that title fits perfectly_.

"So, what now?" Steve Rogers—the soldier, the commander, the leader—had struggled into a sitting position on the floor, the young scientist still by his side, and was looking up at him expectantly. "Are we going to call Nemesis now?"

Loki's lips parted in surprise. "Are you really asking _me_?"

"You're the person with power, knowledge and a plan, remember?" Tony Stark asked with a huge, lopsided grin. "You saved our asses, so you lead the way from here. Isn't that how it usually works?"

"Wait, let me rephrase this," Loki said and he felt his chest swell as if his body were a volcano preparing to erupt with pride and delight at his own greatness. "You just appointed me the leader of the Avengers for this quest, yes?"

"Don't overstep the mark, okay? Just tell us what we need to do to save our friends," the Widow said. "Please," she added softly, almost as an afterthought.

Loki held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Alright, first of all, I need food. Thor does too. We need lots of food. Sec—"

"As she said," the archer cut in, "don't overstep the mark. This is not your palace and we're not your servants."

"You are not," Loki agreed, drilling his red Jotun gaze into Barton and enjoying it immensely when the other man flinched, seemingly against his will. "But your souls will not go to Hel because of me and you did not even yet find it in yourself to thank me. None of you did, except for Stark—which, I suppose, is fine by me—but the least you can offer me in lieu of your gratitude is sustenance."

The young mortal scientist swallowed and looked deeply ashamed. "I am sorry. You have our thanks. And we will have a meal prepared for you." She pressed a few buttons on her watch and said something in a language that Loki had no time to translate with the Allspeak's magic.

The other Avengers too looked embarrassed and broke out into a cacophony of apologies and expressions of thanks that made Loki feel surprisingly uncomfortable. "Okay, that's enough. You are welcome," he hurried to say, then turned to Thor. "Second, before we do anything with that seventh stone, we need to figure out whether Nemesis was inside your head when you attacked Hela. Whether she controlled you before I …" He let his voice trail off.

"Yeah, what _did_ you do?" asked Thor, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. "And why don't I remember?"

"I am afraid I used the Mind Stone to brainwash you into 'killing' me," Loki conceded quietly. "My apologies."

"You did _what_?" came from Barton, Thor, Rocket and Pepper in unison.

Thor's face was a mask of consternation. "I-is that why I don't remember?"

Loki gave a nod and silently cursed himself that he had revealed the truth with all of them present when he felt their distrust rising again.

"How did you," Thor stammered. "I mean, how did you … convince me to do it? I would never have tried to …"

"Brother issues, I suppose," Loki replied with a mirthless smile.

"I don't understand," said Thor.

Loki gave a sigh. "I know but it does not matter right now."

"It does to me," Thor insisted and he looked so pained that Loki felt his chest yawn open. "Did I really … kill you?"

"Yes," Loki said softly. "I know you don't understand and I will tell you everything later—I promise you that I will—but for now, it is more important if Nemesis was inside your head when you attacked Hela and what she said to you."

Thor only reluctantly let go of the previous topic. "What makes you think she was in my head at all?"

Loki raised an eyebrow at him. "Because you just went berserk, blindly attacked Hela and completely discarded the plan?"

" _What_ plan?" Thor yelled, visibly flustered now. "I didn't even know what the plan was because you never told me!"

"Guys, please," the raccoon intervened, "don't lose your shit, okay?"

"Well, the plan was to rely on wits and intelligence, not on battle strength," Loki reminded him. "But I should have anticipated that you are not able to—"

"That's enough," Valkyrie silenced him. She still looked as pale and disheveled as she had when Loki had first opened his eyes but her voice was as forceful as ever. "Just focus, okay?"

"So, Nemesis did not communicate with you?" Loki brought himself to ask his brother. "You did not feel her magic, did not feel her energy reach into your mind? The only time she ever talked to you was when she told you to free her earlier?"

"Yes." Thor nodded, vehemently at first, then more hesitantly. "I mean, I think so. I don't remember." He let out a frustrated sigh. "I guess I just wanted to hurt Hela for everything …" His voice trailed off but then gained force again when he looked at Valkyrie. "For everything she did to us. My anger got the better of me, I guess."

"Now that is an unheard-of incident," Loki mocked. He looked from Thor to Shuri. "Do you have a vibranium casing we can use to contain the power of the stone until we have decided how dangerous it is and what we are going to do with it?"

Shuri gave a nod and rose to her feet. When she went in search for a suitable vessel, Rogers finally rose to his feet too, swaying, and the Widow rushed to his side instantly, looping her arm around his waist.

"But we're freeing her, aren't we? That's what she told you to do, no?" Thor asked, his brows drawing together in confusion.

"Just to be clear, who is _she_?" asked Bruce. "That woman's counsel we're relying on here? That woman who is the wisest person in all of Asgard?"

"My mother," said Loki.

"You mean, like," asked Rocket, jerking his furry little head in Thor's direction.

Loki blew out an exasperated breath. There were times in his life when he would have loved to hurt the little creature for that remark but now the urge to stab a fork into his eyes passed away as quickly as it had come. "I mean, _like_ , the Queen of Asgard. And she said to find Nemesis, not to free her. I suppose you will all agree that these two expressions do not exactly denote the same line of action."

"But who says that she is more reliable or trustworthy than your father?" Nebula asked with a quick glance at Valkyrie, who merely shrugged in response. "I wouldn't know. He married her after I left Asgard."

"We do," said Thor but his voice did not carry. "Our mother was the … she was …"

"She would never lie to us," Loki took over for him.

"Okay, first of all, that isn't true because she clearly lied to you about being adopted," the Widow began and Loki resented her for being right. "And second, if that was the case, why didn't she tell you what to do after you found Nemesis?"

"Because she was sure that I already knew the answer," Loki replied, aware of how outrageous this must sound to her kind.

"What, like some kind of Jedi-Yoda-Force mumbo jumbo?" Stark asked.

"I have no idea what you are talking about but if it involves spiritual connections, it might be," Loki replied. "In any event, I need to think and you need to rest, especially you." He looked at Rogers. Then he fixed Barton. "I know that every additional minute you have to spend with the knowledge of your loved ones residing inside the Soul World rips your heart further apart but we must not rush this. If we make another mistake by acting without thinking like my dear brother usually does, well, the consequences might be dire."

Thor and Barton both grumbled but, thankfully, they both remained silent. Loki fixed Shuri, then Stark. "And you should build that vibranium gauntlet, just in case."

Stark frowned. "In what case?"

"In case Nemesis turns out to be our enemy against all odds or in case I was wrong about Ragnarok or, I don't know, just in case." Loki drew a sharp breath. "Does that expression not mean the same thing to you as it does to me?"

"Wrong about Ragnarok?" Stark repeated. "But you said—"

"I know what I said," Loki interrupted him. When he locked eyes with the engineer, he felt something stir inside of him that he would have loved to see lying dormant forever. When Stark did not break eye contact, he was very grateful that his Jotun body was not subject to the burning heat of abashed arousal that would have plagued his Aesir body at this very moment. "It really is just in case, okay?"

"But what would we even do with a gauntlet if none of us can use it to snap?" Thor asked and the expression of confusion on his face was delightful.

" _You_ could snap, silly," Loki replied and drew a little bit too much pleasure from his brother's reaction of shock and disbelief. "You are a God, Thor. If you cannot use all of the Infinity Stones at once if you were to set your mind on it, then who could? I mean, you could not have earlier, that is true. You lacked focus and mental strength. You did not even suggest you could do it because you weren't even in a condition to summon the Bifrost, or else you would have come looking for me while I was away in Norway." Loki smiled at Thor, whose teeth guiltily pulled at this lower lip, and jabbed a finger into his chest. "You needed to find your confidence again." He jabbed again, accentuating every noun. "Your strength. Your optimism. Your faith. Your sense of purpose. Now that you have all of that back, you can do anything."

Thor's lips were standing open as he processed this and he looked almost desperate when he finally spoke. "Why are you always telling lies and half-truths?"

Loki frowned at him. "If that is all you want to take from this, fine, I omitted this detail—and no, omissions are not merely lies by another name—in order to protect you. From yourself. You would have tried to use Stark's and Shuri's gauntlet to make up for your mistake without even thinking about what it takes to wield all six stones. And if you had, you might have killed yourself and everyone else in the process, making the same mistake you made with Hela. What you needed was to have her out of the picture before you could focus on anything else."

"He really is looking out for you," Valkyrie said in genuine astonishment and, despite the fact that the distrust still implicit in that statement nagged at him, Loki was glad to see that she was slowly recovering from the shock written all over her face when had had awoken.

"I am." Loki chuckled. "But is it not funny—well, tragic rather, if you think about it—how he keeps taking everything I say at face value even though he knows that I am almost always lying?"

Valkyrie snorted.

"Yeah, maybe I am in need of another title, too," Thor snapped but his offended tone was merely an act. "Thor, God of Gullibility. How does that sound?"

"Very much like you," Loki said softly, surprised that he felt both at home in this foreign land amidst people who probably still distrusted him and utterly at peace. Of course, someone had to ruin that peace and, of course, it had to be Barton. He felt his inner defenses rise up again and, before the archer could do anything more than harrumph to redirect their attention, Loki snapped his fingers and the other man's lips moved voicelessly. "I know," said Loki, transforming his voice into Barton's. "You lying scum have no right to enjoy these moments with your brother as long as my family remains trapped in the Soul World." Loki changed his voice back to his own. "Yes, you have made that abundantly clear."

Barton's mouth opened but no sound came out. "Just stop with the shenanigans, okay?" Romanoff chided him. "You're not exactly making yourself popular."

"I have no desire to make myself popular," Loki retorted in a soft growl even though that was not true by any means. "I merely wish to wipe out the red from my ledger."

The Widow narrowed her eyes at him in response to the shared memory and Loki released Barton from the simple spell. "We will rescue them," Loki snapped. "Just give us a few more hours, if that is not too much to ask."

"It's not," said Bruce.

"Your meal is ready," said Shuri as she approached Thor with a silver vibranium ball that opened with a soft hiss at her touch. Thor placed the seventh stone inside and the ball closed again. Shuri turned it in her hands and then focused Stark. "You go eat. I will try to fix Steve's arm in the meantime. Bring some food for him when you return and then we can start with the gauntlet."

Loki pulled the scorched Infinity Gauntlet out of the pocket dimension and handed it to the warrior woman whose name he had forgotten. "For reference," he said and, then, he turned away. "But whatever you do, do not try to remove the Soul Stone."

* * *

The food served in the Royal Palace of Wakanda was nowhere near as atrocious as the so-called junk food the mortals had consumed in the Avengers compound and the dining room, which they were being led to by who Loki guessed were servants, looked nowhere near as earthly as the compound. It housed a great round table with a white tablecloth, upon which plates filled with cheese, fruits, fish, meats, pastries and many more delicacies had been placed around a flower arrangement prior to their arrival. The setting sun was pouring warm orange light into the room through giant windows, lending the room a truly palatial atmosphere.

Loki shapeshifted into his Asgardian form in order to be able to ingest the food as he slid onto a chair and, without warning, a wave of sadness washed over him. He reached for a plate of fish but, suddenly, the idea of sitting down at a dinner table with Tony Stark, Valkyrie, Thor and Rocket—who was either very hungry or very unwilling to let them out of his raccoon sight—seemed so absurd that he wanted to disappear. The food was exquisite and still he hardly tasted it. Wine was poured and Loki greedily inhaled it, but he hardly tasted that either. He watched Tony Stark over the rim of his glass, watched how the engineer too gobbled down the wine as if his life depended on it and how he held the glass towards the base of the stem between his iron-gloved thumb and forefinger, the armor around his hand concealing the damage the Soul Stone had inflicted upon it. When the other man caught his gaze, Loki quickly averted his and this time he did feel a hot rush of embarrassment shooting up his neck and cheeks.

Loki knew that he had done right by the Avengers, by his brother, his mother, maybe even by Odin, but still he silently cursed himself for the moment that had led to this one of him being served as a guest in another ruler's abode. He saw himself placing the crown of Surtur into the Eternal Flame and setting the whole of Asgard on fire. Thanks to him and Thor, _their_ entire palace, their entire _home_ , was gone now. The golden pillars, the dining room tables, the royal kitchen, the ornaments in the tremendous hallways, the decorated windows, the atrium—all of it was gone.

Thor remained blissfully oblivious and unbothered as he apparently tried his hardest to live up to the stories that humans had told each other about the God of Thunder and his insatiable appetite throughout the years while Loki grew increasingly restless. He sipped on his wine, leaving the food untouched and waiting for his subconscious to reveal the one thought, the one memory, that his mother wanted him to remember.

"Is that what you call 'needing lots of food'?" Stark asked him with his mouth full. "You hardly touched anything."

"I am thinking," Loki replied.

Stark raised his eyebrows. "About what?"

"The palace that we lost," Loki answered truthfully and was surprised how easy it was to admit to what he would have previously considered a sign of weakness.

"You should see their library," Thor told him around mouthful of roast. "I mean, it's not as impressive as the one that you spent all your time in growing up but I am sure you'd still like it."

Loki's lips opened as the image of the library of the Realm Eternal and its unmeasurable treasures of age-old wisdom flashed before his mind's eye. Thanks to him and Thor, all this wisdom was now gone as well. Thanks to him, every book Frigga had sent him during his imprisonment in the dungeons was now reduced to ashes floating through the universe and every information about Nemesis that might have been in Asgardian possession at one point was lost to them forever. Then, finally, his subconscious stirred and presented him with a memory of his younger self, lying on the cot in his cell deep beneath the palace of Asgard, his skin tinged with the yellow light of the Seiᵭr engulfing the dungeons, leafing through a book bearing the title _The Schooling of Agamotto_.

Loki stood up so abruptly that his chair clattered to the floor beneath him.

"What?" asked Thor.

"Thank you, brother. You gave me just what I needed." Loki emptied his glass of wine and placed it on the table. "I need to go."

"What, now?" asked Stark.

"Where to?" asked Valkyrie.

"I need to find Wong," said Loki and then he fled the room, ignoring whatever it was that the others were shouting after him.

* * *

 _Notes :_  
 _-Allspeak is the ability by Asgardians and other deities to speak and be understood by all other races throughout the Nine Realms. This ability also plays a role in many books remotely following Norse mythology (and even the original myths), even though it isn't excplicity referred to as Allspeak there (at least not in the one's I've read)._  
 _-The 'volcano erupting with pride' was inspired by a line in Neil Gaiman's American Gods, which I am currently reading. It is the 10th Anniversary issue, p. 53, and it says there 'as if he were a lanky, bearded, drunken volcano preparing to erupt with delight at his own brilliance'. A line too good not to use, in my opinion._  
 _-And please, be patient with me, lol. This turned out much longer than I have anticipated—what a surprise—so Nemesis will have to wait until next time. I sincerely apologize and wish you all a very HAPPY NEW YEAR :) May 2020 bless you all in ways you have never even imagined. Thanks for the support and for reviewing, favoriting or following this story and, yes, enough with the sentiment. I hope to see y'all soon!_


	45. Odin's Successor

#45

Loki had cackled at the wizard's naïve conviction that the library of the Masters of the Mystic Arts held all the secrets of the universe earlier but, in a way, he now realized, it did. Well, it did for those who knew where to look and thankfully, Loki always found out where exactly he had to look in order to discover loopholes, forbidden spells, secret pathways and other mysteries that Odin, and sometimes even Frigga, had wished to hide from him.

Loki reached for the magic of the Masters of the Mystic Arts as he stepped into the Royal Court, halfway expecting the other man to have returned to the Sanctum, but the trace of Wong's signature led Loki to a bench on which the other man sat in deep thought. His face was turned towards the setting sun as if he were trying to soak up the rest of its warmth.

Loki sauntered over to him with that pointedly languid walk that Odin had absolutely despised when he had been a boy, earning a few wary glances of the guards patrolling the area. "Good evening," Loki said and then sat down beside the other man without invitation. The wizard shifted nervously and Loki followed his gaze towards the setting sun that was slowly dipping the forested hills that rose behind the city into a blood orange. "This place truly is beautiful."

"What do you want?" Wong asked, his tone leaving no doubt that he would not speak to Loki unless utmost necessity demanded it.

 _Fine_ , thought Loki, flashing him an innocent smile. "Can I not just talk to you? Is that not what you do in this realm? Exchange pleasantries before you, you know, bring your concerns forth?"

"You don't have to keep talking like that, you know that, right?" Wong bit his lip. "But thank you, for everything you did."

"You are welcome," Loki said. "Even though I do not think your soul has ever been in any real danger. I don't suppose my brother cares for you very much."

"I don't care much for him either," Wong replied briskly. "Or you."

Loki grabbed his chest and heaved a theatrical sigh. "Your words are like a knife to my heart."

"Tell me what you want," the wizard demanded.

Loki turned serious. "I need access to the library of Kamar Taj, for I believe it contains a book that rightfully belongs to us. To Asgard." He waited for the wizard's reaction, carefully studying his face. The other man seemed to be considering the proposal, his brow in a frown. "What makes you think there is something in that library that belongs to you?" Wong asked after a short pause.

"You do know who schooled Agamotto in magic, don't you?" Loki asked in return.

Wong gritted his teeth with annoyance. "He was a powerful being born from the tear of an Elder Goddess and he was born as an immensely powerful sorcerer, quite possibly the most powerful to ever live. He did not need anyone to _school_ him in magic."

"I was afraid you were going to say something like that," Loki sighed. "But then again, you mortals actually believed that I was the one to give birth to Odin's horse." When he had first discovered this dreadful piece of Midgardian lore, he had been mortally offended, taking it as another proof how monstrous everyone apparently thought him to be, but now he merely cackled at the idea.

Wong blew out an exasperated breath. "What is your point?"

"History has a way of twisting the truth of what has transpired, is my point. Have you ever wondered why you call it _his_ tory? Much to think about, isn't there?" Loki grinned when he heard Wong draw another breath laden with his rising aggravation. "Anyway, what seems to have happened was this: The Allfather descended to Midgard in the guise of a one-eyed wanderer—inspiring the image you mortals have of a wizard—and entrusted young Agamotto with the Time Stone. Then, he sent his mightiest sorceress to teach him in magic so that Earth would be able to protect against itself against mystical threats without Asgard's assistance."

"You're lying," Wong snapped. "Why would I believe even for one minute that our magic comes from Asgard?"

"If you take me to your library, I will show you proof that I am not lying," Loki said with a casual shrug, springing the trap. In truth, he did not know whether he was _actually_ lying—and how could he truly know after telling Hela that she had better rethink everything she believed to be true about the universe since much of her knowledge had come from Odin's teachings—but it did not matter.

What mattered was that Wong, albeit reluctant to rise to the bait, was intrigued and not very skilled at concealing it. "I don't like you," he said and Loki marveled at how little it actually bothered him what this mortal thought of him, "but I will bring you to Kamar Taj if you tell me how you accomplished the spell that killed and resurrected you."

 _Proposing an exchange, are we?_ Loki thought. _Very well_. "What makes you think I could teach you that spell?" He flashed him an arrogant smile that would have sent his father's temper through the roof.

Wong shook his head. "Is your ego really so fragile that you constantly need to ridicule others to feel better about yourself?"

Loki swallowed. So much for not being bothered by this man's opinion of him. "Not anymore," he brought himself to say. Then, he gave a nod. "We have an agreement."

Wong sealed it with a brisk nod before he opened a portal that sprung from his fingers in sparks of orange. Loki followed him, changing back into his Jotun form as he did, just in case there was anyone on the lookout for beings that have posed a threat to their order in the past.

"Just so you know, it's pretty creepy when you keep changing your appearance like that," Wong noted as Loki set foot into the library that was almost as myth-enshrouded among Midgardian magicians as the Asgardian library was throughout the entire cosmos. _Had been_ , Loki silently corrected himself and felt another stab of pain inside his chest. He reached for Frigga's magic, tried to console himself with the warmth of her signature, but despite the words of encouragement that he had spoken to his brother earlier, Loki himself felt nowhere near ready to face a life without his mother in it.

"So, tell me," commanded the wizard.

"Well, it's complicated," Loki started as he began to walk the aisles of the library and, much to Wong's dismay, brushed his fingertips along the covers of the dusty tomes. "You see, the Reality Stone is a part of me. So, there is this ancient force residing inside of me that wants to take possession of me and that wants to keep me alive because it wants my body ever since I came within its reach on Svartalfheim a few years ago."

He saw that the wizard was not following, so he said, "Never mind. In short, what I did was to lock my essence into a box; a magical box inside my mind to keep it safe from everything that would happen. To keep it safe from the deadly blow that Thor was going to deal me. Because, you see, even upon our physical deaths, the magic inside of us does not perish with us. Which is to say that the Reality Stone magic was going to endure. All I had to do was command it to open the box again after a limited amount of time, which, I figured, Valkyrie needed to teleport us back to safety with the Space Stone I have given her. Since the Reality Stone's superior motive is to keep me alive for future wanting-to-possess-itself-of-my-mind kind of activities, it complied with my demand. And, tadaaa, here I am." He stretched out his arms, smiling at how effortlessly he had managed to make it sound as if performing the spell had been the easiest thing in the world when it had almost cost his life. _Again_. He really needed to stop the attempt to use magic on the brink of death for a while as soon as the universe was safe.

"That is not possible," Wong gasped.

Loki flashed him a smug grin. "Well, am I here, am I not?"

"Where did you learn a spell like that?" Wong asked and Loki took mischievous pleasure in how fascinated the other man was by his achievement. He gave a shrug and said, "When I was imprisoned in the dungeons. You know, for my crimes against your world."

The wizard's lips gaped open. "They let you continue practice sorcery while you were a prisoner? In Asgard?"

"Oh Gods no." Loki giggled. "I was imprisoned in a magic-proof cell that would not allow me to perform any spell, except for basic illusions. If I attempted more than that, it would feel like the worst migraine in the world, like a thousand torches igniting my temples. But my mother, she sent me books," Loki continued as they had reached the door leading to what he supposed was the section of the library reserved for masters only. He waited for Wong to give him permission to enter. "I read about all sorts of spells that I could not practice but only memorize," Loki continued as Wong guided him into the room and he set foot onto the soft carpet, walking past an old wooden table with three chairs on either side of it. "And this one seemed particularly useful. I used it right after Thor let me out of the dungeons and the Dark Elves attempted to kill us and it worked." Loki smiled in gleeful delight at his own brilliance but then remembered the glint of pain in his brother's eyes, his face convulsing with sheer terror when the life streamed out of Loki's body in his strong hands, and his smile died on his lips.

"Anyway, I have read well over five hundred books during my confinement, which is how I learned all about this place. About your order. About your access to the Mirror Dimension and the Dark Dimension. About those books." Loki had stopped in front of a construction of several iron hexagons welded together in an arrangement vaguely resembling the honeycombs of a beehive and holding several books with a glimmering orange crystal in the middle, which were fixed to the construction with black chains. The collection was a truly glorious sight and if he had had the time, he would have taken every single book out, running his fingers along their covers in awe, and studied the wisdom in them with the same hungry curiosity that kept him awake through endless nights when he had studied every tome in Asgard's library as a youth. _Maybe one day_.

"But most of all, I learned about the one book that is hidden beneath those," Loki finished. "Which is the one that we need."

"There is no book beneath those," said Wong. "I would know," he added, his tone taking on the familiar edge of annoyance when he saw Loki's eyebrows hiking up. "I have been the guardian of this library."

"Do not lie to me," Loki told him as he fixed the other man with his blood-red Jotun stare.

"W-what w-would _you_ need this for?" stammered Wong, both his skepticism and his fear almost palpable. "This book was written by Agamotto himself and not even the Ancient One—"

"Let me stop you right there," Loki interrupted him. "It was not written by Agamotto." He paused for dramatic effect. "It was written by his teacher."

"Your father," Wong grumbled.

"Exactly," said Loki. "Now, show me."

Wong's reluctance was written all over his face when he brought his hands together and the Eldritch magic pulsated to life between his palms in bright, sizzling sparks of orange. He moved his hands in a circular motion until a keyhole-shaped portal opened in front of them, revealing an altar made of stone, upon which rested a single book bound in black leather, a black chain similar to the books protecting what Loki guessed was the Sorcerer Supreme's collection having been tied around it.

"There is nothing on or in this book that anyone could read," Wong said as Loki stretched out his blue hand and retrieved the book from the secret dimension, holding it out in awe as he inspected the lock of the chain. By the look of it, it was black obsidian and when his fingertips brushed its surface, he suspected it to be made of rock from the volcanic fields of Svartalfheim. _So, it is true_. _Everything you read is true_. _Odin left this here for his successor_.

"This book has never been meant for—" Wong continued but then interrupted himself, his eyes bulging in disbelief, when fine silver markings appeared on its cover, morphing into a carving of Yggdrasil.

"It has not been meant for your kind, no," Loki said with a grin half-real, half-feigned. He showed Wong the lock and traced the shape of the object meant to unlock it with his right index finger. "What does this look like to you?"

Recognition washed over the wizard's face but he was too stunned to articulate a single word. Loki tried to open the look but an ancient magic bit into his skin. He clutched the book to his chest. "We need to get this book back to the others."

"No! There is no chance I will let you leave this library with our property," Wong mumbled when he had regained his composure.

"I know you take your oath to protect the wisdom within these walls very seriously but _this_ is not your property," Loki reminded him as he tapped on the cover of the book. "This is property of Asgard, which means that it is ours. Now, open the portal."

"And if I don't?" asked Wong.

"Then I do this," Loki said, shrunk his body to the size of atoms and teleported himself back to Wakanda with a spell he had not used since long before Thor's planned coronation because there had either been no need or he had been too exhausted to even attempt it when he had been in need of it.

* * *

Loki's body pieced itself back together in front of the dining room they had been led to earlier and he carefully pushed the door open, feeling only slightly dizzy. The room was abandoned now but the plates with the rest of the food Thor and the others had left uneaten were still on the table. He shapeshifted back into his Asgardian form and helped himself to some plates of meats and fruits, wolfing them down before anyone would disturb him, before he walked back into Shuri's laboratory where everyone stood assembled again in the process of recreating a vibranium gauntlet.

"How do you fare, my, well, not-really-friends?" Loki asked casually, the book in his hands concealed by an invisibility spell.

"The gauntlet's coming along nicely," said Stark and Loki had to admit to himself that indeed it was. The scientists had captured its original structure in a hologram hovering about a desk. To Loki, the nature of the hologram looked similar to the digital representation they had created of the Mind Stone's molecular integrity earlier, the lines of its structure flickering in the air in a glimmering purple. Tiny robotic arms mounted to an extension of the desk were compiling the new gauntlet and, much to Loki's pleasant surprise, it was black with a few parts of charcoal mounted in between instead of gold, which looked far less presumptuous and far more attractive.

"But we still need to transfer the Aether back into the original stone and remove the Soul Stone from the original gauntlet," said Shuri.

"If you're ready to let go of that thing," Stark added with a smile that Loki wanted to wipe off his face because of the feelings it stirred up inside of him. Of course, he was ready but, then again, he was not. "Let us wait until you are finished, shall we?" Loki asked.

Steve Rogers was standing a little further back and Loki noted that Shuri had attached a prosthetic arm to his left shoulder, its dark gray surface reflecting the light of the unforgiving bluish lamps glaring down on them from the ceiling.

"Nice arm," Loki commented.

"Thank you," said Rogers even though he did not look overly pleased and, honestly, _who_ would look overly pleased in such a situation?

"But I think it is missing something," Loki commented and, with a flick of his fingers, the gray on the prosthetic bloomed into bright shades of red, blue and white, morphing into the American flag.

The captain's expression soured. "Please, take that back."

"Why?" Loki asked, his face a long-perfected mask of innocence. "This is your signature feature, is it not?"

Rogers grumbled but, apparently, he was not in the mood for a discussion.

"Weren't you going to look for Wong?" asked Thor with a look of slight irritation on his face.

"I did. We traveled to Kamar Taj together but he refused to give me a ride back, so I gave me my own ride." Loki shrugged and enjoyed it immensely when all of their faces fell.

"You _what_?" asked Thor.

"How?" asked Valkyrie. "If you had neither had access to the portals nor the Rainbow Bridge nor the Space Stone?"

"I have access to my mind," said Loki, "which is all the access that I need, believe me. I also have access to this book," he added, removing the invisibility spell. "Which, admittedly, is not related to the travel issue but still of importance."

"Seriously," gasped Rocket, "what is it with this guy?"

"You could not even begin to understand," Loki replied. "However, I would appreciate it if you stopped referring to me as a 'guy' or a 'dude'. For some reason, these names do not really sit well with me."

"Ooookay," the raccoon conceded as he held up his paws in surrender even though his expression belied that the request had irritated him.

"What did the two of you do in Kamar Taj?" asked Stark just as an orange portal opened beside them and Wong strutted back into the room, yelling, "Why did you even ask me for permission to enter the library if you can world-walk by _yourself_?"

"Oh, I don't know," Loki said. "Maybe I was trying to show off my vast range of abilities as a sorcerer. You know, to massage my ego." He flashed the other man a grin. In truth, of course, he needed the Avengers to believe that he was still playing by their rules and if he had entered the library of Kamar Taj by himself and someone had detected his signature, well, that risk had simply been none worth taking.

"I _knew_ you could teleport," Thor grumbled and Loki only now remembered that he had kept this secret from most people in Asgard in order to have the upper hand and had outright denied it to Thor a few times for reasons he no longer remembered.

"So, what's that book?" Nebula asked before they could delve into another brotherly discussion about all the things Loki had kept from Thor throughout the years.

"It has been kept safe on Midgard for eons in case the Realm Eternal is destroyed," Loki replied. "And, judged by what kind of information the secret Asgardian books I read so far usually contain, this is the one in which we are finally going to find the information about Nemesis we have been looking for all this time."

"Realm Eternal," Stark mused. "They didn't really give much thought to that name if they feared it might be destroyed one day, did they?" Loki suppressed a smile at the remark. "And why keep the book there?" Stark continued. "Didn't you say to Hela that Odin did not want anyone to know of this stone's existence? Why leave information about it? That doesn't make any sense."

"Because you do not take knowledge as valuable as this to your grave," Loki explained. "You ensure that the knowledge survives somehow and then go out of your way to hide it as best as you can so that those who come after you have the hardest possible time finding it. This is nothing new to you, is it?" Loki continued when he saw their wary expresions. "Throughout the history of the universe, all sentient beings have been obsessed with weaving legends, telling truths and lies and half-truths and everything in between to cover their tracks, but still they left important crumbs of knowledge behind in treasure maps and other secret messages."

"Why would he want _you_ to find it, though, after everything …" Stark's voice trailed off as if he remembered something that made him change his mind.

"He did not," Loki assured him. "It was my mother who sent me the book containing information to its whereabouts."

"It still doesn't make much sense," the Widow pointed out. "But then again, nothing really makes sense anymore."

"Well, don't you have an expression about how the lord moves in mysterious ways?" Loki asked and then smiled when most of them rolled their eyes in recognition. "It is like that. In any way," he continued and then turned towards Thor. "The book is meant for Odin's successor. The future king of Asgard." He held the book out to his brother. "Which means that it is yours."

Thor shook his head and softly pushed the book away from him. "No, it is yours. The throne should have always been yours."

Loki gulped, tears of gratitude for his brother's trust in his abilities stinging his eyes, and, for a moment, he lost his tongue, the book between them like an accursed relic nobody dared to touch.

"Look at the lock," Wong told Thor, breaking the spell. When the wizard said this, Thor took the book at last and he studied the shape of the object meant to unlock the wisdom inside. "Is that …?"

"Yes," said Loki.

"What?" asked Rocket as everyone else came closer and crowed around them, inspecting the book with both curiosity and alarm.

"It very much looks like you can place the seventh stone in here," said Thor.

* * *

 _Notes :_

 _~ First off, sorry, Akira, that there was no Loki bursting open the doors of the New York Sanctum. My apologies._  
 _~ Second, Nemesis will come but I have this annoying tendency to write everything out in much more detail than originally planned, so you will have to be patient a liiiiiittle longer. Just tell me if I am annoying you, please. I totally understand._  
 _~ Third, the exchange about why we call it history (i.e. **his** story) is taken from the Gospel of Loki by Joanne M. Harris, in which Loki draws attention to the fact that history has been written by the Old Man (men?) and is, as such, not very trustworthy to begin with._  
 _~ Fourth, the whole locking-things-inside-a-magic-box-inside-your-mind thing is an idea that I have picked up from the Dr. Sleep novel by Stephen King last year. In that novel, Dick Halloran tells Danny to lock the ghosts he encountered in the Overlook away into a box and this idea stayed with me ever since, partly influencing how I developed Loki's appoach to his own memories, emotions etc. I briefly mentioned it before when Loki locked his most treasured memories of him and Thor reconciling in a box, more precisely a treasure chest, before he attempted to retrieve the Mind Stone in chapter 23. Originally, when Loki explained this to Wong, I had him asking "Like with the shining?" and Loki asking back, "What's a shining?" but then I remembered that Wong is not big on pop-cultural references, which is why I cut it._  
 _~ Fifth, Tony has been thinking about how his father, despite always having giving him the feeling of not appreciating him in the slightest, left him the map that enabled him to create a new element so he did not have to die. But I am fairly sure you will all have deduced this by yourselves._  
 _~ Sixth, you might think that this chapter is a kind of a stretch but my story has been revolving around Asgard having its fingers in every pie from the very start, from Thor and Loki being responsible for all the events that happened in the MCU to Odin having possessed all the Infinity Stones at one point and I am keeping this up. This is Asgard and Odin Allfather we're taking about after all, duh._  
 _~ Anyway, the team is about to learn everything. I hope you are excited. See you soon xoxo_


	46. Before the Dawn of Creation

**Okay, it took me quite a while to post this because my mental health isn't great and I hated this chapter at times and I think it hates me as well. But, anyway, there is no point in putting it off any longer because this is one of the chapters that I can't edit into perfection and that is just the way it is. I hope you're gonna enjoy it anyway! More notes at the end.  
**

* * *

#46

As soon as Thor's hands closed around the book, the air began to swell with magic, faint at first, but thickening quickly. _Odin's successor_ , Loki thought, and he was in equal parts astonished and proud that the realization did not bother him. At least not at this very second. The vibranium vessel in which Shuri had secured the seventh stone began to vibrate on the table upon which she had placed it, sending fine wisps of black glamour through the air that stirred the other stones awake. The Time Stone and the Space Stone, which were resting on the scientist's desk in the same cylindrical glass containers that Wong had used to store them when he had extracted them from the demolished gauntlet earlier, began to flicker.

"W-what's happening?" the Widow asked, her voice hitching as unease sept into it. The Soul Stone in the broken gauntlet began to flicker as well, brighter and more aggressive, and Loki heard the Soul's enraged screams of protest inside his head, joined by the shrill outcry of the Reality Stone. The Mind Stone and Power Stone gnawed at the seals of the pocket dimension, demanding to be set free. Loki closed his eyes and exhaled a sharp breath as all of the stones began to hiss like snakes in a pit, the noise like sanding paper on his nerves.

"She wants to be put in the lock," Thor replied and his voice articulated the same disquiet that glared at Loki from everyone else's faces as soon as he opened his eyes again. "She wants us to know the truth."

"Is that … a good idea?" Bruce asked.

"It can't be," came from Nebula.

 _It has to be_. They had come this far in their quest and Loki refused to believe for even one norndamned second that facing and vanquishing both Thanos and Hela should have been for nothing. If only the stones let him think. If only they fell quiet. They did not. _Let me out, you miserable worm_ , screamed Reality. _I will devour you, do you hear me? You belong to me! Let me oooooout …_ And, then another voice rang out inside his skull, a voice both soothing and threatening, soft and shrill, warm and cold. _You befouled them_. _You hurt them_. _You abused them_.

"Is it?" Valkyrie repeated when no answer came.

Thor shrugged his shoulders and glanced at Loki. _Oh brother, if you do not start thinking for yourself soon …_ "She does want us to know. Nemesis," Loki said eventually, his head throbbing with the effort to tune down the stones' cries. "She wants us to know how devastated she is because we hurt her children."

"Her _children_?" came from the raccoon.

"She is angry," Thor concurred, not paying attention to Rocket's outcry. "I'm not sure it's the best idea right now."

Tears crept into Loki's voice. "She will not be any less devastated in the future, brother. She is a mother who has seen her children suffer."

"You okay there?" asked Stark.

"Of course," Loki replied but the words came out in a high-pitched half-sob. The engineer raised an eyebrow at him and Loki could feel his emotional defense unravel at the thought that, no matter how this ended, no matter whether the Soul released those she had devoured or not, Frigga would not return from Valhalla.

"Dude, you really cry a lot," Rocket pointed out, his voice devoid of any emotion except for a slightly irritated annoyance. "Just put the damn stone in the damn lock already."

Loki willed the tears into submission and quietly berated himself for his sensitivity.

"I really don't think we should," said Thor.

"What are you talking about? This is just a book," Rocket said, throwing his paws into the air in frustration. "A fucking _book_. What do you think is gonna happen, uh? A demon jumps out of the pages as soon as you put the stone in there and devours us whole?"

"With everything that happened so far, you're still not afraid of magic?" Pepper accused the raccoon without averting her gaze from the book. She too was frightened, Loki could see that, but there was still a flicker of curiosity in her eyes.

"It's a fucking book," Rocket repeated.

"It's not just a fucking book, plushie!" Stark yelled. "What if it's some kind of Indiana Jones thing where—"

"Stark!" Loki interrupted him, an exasperated breath trembling out of his slightly opened lips. "When will you understand that some of us have no idea what you are talking about? We have no idea who Elsa or Frozone or Davy Jones—"

" _Indiana_ Jones," corrected Thor. "He's a Midgardian superhero."

"Fictional hero," added Rogers.

Loki stared all his exasperation into them, silently demanding an explanation.

"He chases, well, it doesn't matter," Stark interrupted himself. "But sometimes he finds secret devices like that in a temple below the surface of the earth or something, which fit perfectly into tiny rock crevices and—boom—the whole structure collapses as soon as he puts them in there."

"These are _fictional_ stories!" Barton cried out.

" _Are_ they fictional stories? Are they, Barton?" Stark asked him, his breath suddenly coming in sharp, rapid gasps, his voice bordering on hysteria. "After all this weird cosmological magic crap we have seen, you really still believe that? What if those authors had some Gods appear to them and tell them all those outrageous things about—"

"Tony, calm down!" Pepper shouted as she grabbed his hand and pulled at it, her features twisting with what might have been shock or apprehension.

"Please," Bruce added, seemingly for good measure.

Stark's hand traveled to his chest, massaging his heart. "I am calm," he pressed out.

"The gauntlet is almost finished," Shuri intervened. "I suggest we put the stones in there and then, when we are prepared, we put the seventh stone in the lock." The others nodded their hesitant agreement and Shuri turned to Loki. "Can you try to remove the Soul Stone now?"

Loki's mouth gaped open in a dumbfounded giggle. "There is no way in all the Realms that I am going to touch the Soul Stone when it is in such an aggravated state. You saw what happened to Tony earlier," he said before he could stop himself from using the other man's given name, "and I have no desire to anger it even further. My apologies but I have had my fill of suicidal activities for the week."

When Barton began to speak, Loki expected another accusation, but the other man's words surprised him. "It also might … might hurt them more when we make it angry."

Loki looked at the archer, unsure what to think, so he just lowered his head in a half-nod, his lips standing slightly open. When Barton nodded back, realization passed through the other man's eyes but it was gone so quickly that Loki could not tell what it was.

"What about the Aether?" asked Rogers. "Can you transfer that into the original stone?"

"Well, to be perfectly honest, I am afraid to let it out of its prison, Captain," replied Loki, surprising himself with the fluency and the ease of the truths that he was continuously allowing to escape his usually lying lips.

"Stop calling me that," Rogers said on defeated sigh and the words he spoke next filled Loki with a powerful sensation he could not even begin to explain. "We're all equals now."

Loki gave a nod, not trusting himself to speak in the face of the mortals' sudden change of heart.

When things were decided, they all changed into their battle gear once more— _just in case_ —and, then, waited in silence for the completion of the gauntlet as the seventh stone's glamour wafted through the air, leaving swirls of cosmological mist that puffed out in tiny, toneless explosions while the stones continued their murmur inside Loki's head.

* * *

"It is done," announced Shuri, the joy of accomplishment glinting in her dark eyes. Time, Power, Mind and Space were finally resting in their spaces above the new gauntlet's knuckles, the brightness of their green, purple, yellow and blue colors reflecting in its gleaming black surface. Loki briefly wondered whether the Avengers had simply forgotten or chosen to block out his earlier statement that the seventh stone could deflect all powers of the others when he had suggested they build it but, then again, he himself had been maybe a little too hopeful when he had voiced the suggestion.

 _Hope, the most cursed sentiments of them all_ , a familiar voice snickered. Yes, it was. It truly was and yet Loki finally understood why the humans clung to it so desperately, refusing to let it go even when it was glaringly obvious that that there was no hope at all. The thought of losing everything he had gained in the past few days, of losing Thor again, was almost too much to bear and had infested his own mind with the ridiculous hope that this book was just a book that would present them with instructions on how to proceed instead of unleashing the Goddess herself. With the ridiculous hope that, even if that happened, wielding the stones against their creator would accomplish something, anything. With the ridiculous hope that, even if they could not accomplish anything, he and Thor would die and travel to Valhalla together and he would henceforth spend every day with his mother, talking walks, reading books, and feasting in Odin's Hall of the Slain.

Loki drew a deep breath, trying to collect himself. Shuri took the gauntlet from its mounting and presented it to Thor, who shook his head in protest. "You'd better give it to Loki."

"But he said …" The scientist's words trailed off.

"He said our bodies would pay the prize if we snapped and wielded the magic of all six stones at once. But this isn't about snapping, is it? There's currently only four stones on the gauntlet." Thor jerked his head in Loki's direction. "And he could use them in a way I never could."

"You know, you actually frighten me with your lack of intellectual capacity sometimes," said Loki, his chest swelling with pride in response to his brother's appraisal, "but you can do this too. I know you can."

"Can't _you_ just take it?" asked the Widow and Loki thought he might have imagined those words.

"Please," said Stark. "You take it."

Thor took the gauntlet, came over to him, and held the glove out to him. "You really should."

"Where is your faith in yourself?" Loki asked incredulously. "You have always believed that you could do anything and you moved mountains across the Realms with that belief. What happened to that brother of mine, hm?"

"That brother of yours realized that what you call faith now was nothing but arrogant recklessness and pride," Thor replied with a warm smile that came from the depths of his heart. He thrust the gauntlet into Loki's hands as he moved closer, his other hand traveling to his shoulder and giving it a hearty squeeze. "I'm the Mighty Thor, brother. I'm a warrior, a fighter, a protector, an Avenger. I work with my strength. But you, you work with your mind. Why waste a formidable weapon that you can control with your mind on me?" He smiled again. "Just take it because you will handle it a lot better than I ever could."

Loki smiled through a fresh stream of tears that welled into his eyes in response to his brother's praise. _All be damned, I am giving up_. He wiped the tears away with the back of his hand and then slipped his hand into the gauntlet under the watchful eyes of the Avengers. _Power_ , he could almost hear Thanos murmur in a deep voice full of longing, _infinite power_. The stones' voices grew louder again, hissing into his ear.

 _I will not succumb to that same weakness_ , Loki replied as their energy streamed into him in bright flashes of green, purple, blue and yellow, little lightning blasts crackling around his wrist, until their powers were contained. "Uru," he marveled with a laugh. "This material is truly astonishing."

"That's vibranium," Bruce corrected him.

"Vibranium modified to replicate the molecular structure of uru, no?" Loki asked back and, from the corner of his eye, he saw Shuri giving a nod. "Anyway. Ready when you are," he said with a glance at Thor, who was about to open the vessel holding the seventh stone inside of it.

"Do it," Rogers said even though he did not sound overly sanguine.

When his brother opened the vibranium ball, there was a loud hiss and Loki could see the desperate flicker of the seventh stone. Thor took it out, put it between his thumb and index finger, and then grimaced in pain. "Wow, it really is awake now."

"Are we sure we want to do this?" Romanoff asked.

"What else can we do at this point?" Rogers asked back and to that, nobody had an answer.

"Let's just hope this isn't another one of your bold moves," Valkyrie jested. Loki supposed that she had put quite an effort into making her voice sound light but he could see how much the knowledge that it was Odin Allfather himself, who had left them the book, was ailing her.

 _And it should_. _By Ymir's bones, it should_.

 _Be quiet_.

Thor smiled but the smile did not reach his eyes. "Let's hope not." He walked over to the book they had placed on one of the tables, took a deep breath before he curled the fingers of his left hand around the lock, and carefully inserted the stone into it with his right hand. A flash of faint black light exploded around the book and flitted across the room, swiftly swallowed by the air molecules. Then, the chain softly clicked open and they all stared at the book in uneasy anticipation.

"Booooom!" Rocket screamed and, when all of the Avengers flinched, he broke out into a gleeful giggle. "Ha, that really works every time."

Loki snorted a laugh before he could stop himself. "Classic."

Rocket smiled mischievously. "I know, right?"

"I wish you would stop doing that," Bruce mumbled, to which the raccoon winked.

Thor paid them no attention. He drew a deep breath, removed the chains and opened the book. At first, nothing happened, the first page remaining black and blank, but then, the finest silver markings appeared, morphing into two columns of text in Eldar Futhark runes.

"What does it say? Is that—" asked Pepper but she was interrupted by her own gasp when the page suddenly came to life as once did the pages in the ancient books from a time out of mind that the Allfather had kept sealed in the Hall of Yggdrasil.

"The ancient tongue," Valkyrie whispered back, her gaze pinned to the magic rising from the paper in flimsy streams of energy, conjuring up a translucent projection of a being so fair that, all around him, Loki heard gasps of astonishment. Or perhaps they gasped because of the magic that swelled in the air like a brewing thunderstorm.

"There she is," Thor whispered solemnly and his eyes glazed over with the same awe that Loki felt throbbing beneath his chest. He had thought the incarnation of her children to be of ethereal beauty but Nemesis was fairer, paler, smoother, more imposing, and more majestic, and more of everything than the six translucent entities the Infinity Gauntlet had released in the dreamscape Loki had ventured into forever ago. The Goddess had pale blue skin looking smother than the smoothest silk Loki's fingertips had ever touched. Her hair was long and floating around her in black waves that were gleaming like liquid bitumen under the ceiling lights, and it looked finer than the finest thread of gold he had ever spun. And her eyes, her eyes were like galaxies, of the blackest black, with a thousand celestial alignments sparkling inside them and she fixed them in place with those eyes as if she were there in the flesh and not merely a spirit summoned by the magic of the Eldar.

"So, God _is_ a girl," Stark mumbled but before Loki could enquire the meaning of the words that was, once again, lost on him, the projection of Nemesis spoke and it was not at the engineer that she directed her words.

"Sons of Odin Allfather," she said in a voice as soothing as the waterfall in the gardens of the Valkyries. All around him, mouths gaped open, and the bottom dropped out of Loki's stomach when he understood with a few seconds' delay that the architect of all things that were thought of him as Odin's son. "I have much desired to speak with you."

"Okay, maybe it's not _just_ a book," Rocket conceded in a high-pitched croak that went leagues to define his current state of anguish. "It's fucking speaking."

Valkyrie and Pepper shushed him at once.

Thor glanced at Loki, who motioned him to go ahead by stretching out his hand, palm facing upwards. "You are the big brother," he mouthed tonelessly.

The Thundergod frowned at his younger brother but then he cleared his throat and began, "We have much desired to speak with you too, Nemesis, Goddess of all Gods."

"Before you speak," said the projection, "you must learn the truth, Thunderer." As soon as the words had left her lips, the room in which the sons of Odin and the mortals were standing turned dark. Well, not dark, really. It turned utterly black and screams of terror filled the air that no longer was.

"Where did she go?" cried the Widow.

"Wh-what is happening?" cried Shuri.

"Is that … Ragnarok?" cried Pepper.

"Nemesis!" yelled Thor but his words were met with nothing but nerve-crushing silence. " _Please_ , hear us out!"

Stark harrumphed and said, " _Just_ a prophecy, uh?" and his voice was trembling with fear and it was so close that Loki shuddered. He reached for his magic to light up the dark but his glamour had burned down to the last spark and the mighty weapon on his hand was no longer a weapon but simply a heavy, metallic glove rendered useless by the magic that predated the Infinity Stones and the Realm Eternal. Loki drew in a sharp breath that did not reach his lungs. Dread crept into his every fiber and his entire body began to shake at the thought of the ancient force they had just released but, still, he laughed because it felt so unreal that everything should have been for nothing. But then again, was that not how things usually turned out for the Trickster?

"What is so funny?" came from the raccoon.

"If this is the end, I suppose you deserve the truth in your final moments," Loki conceded. "What I told Hela, well, it was more of a wild guess, really."

"Our final moments?" Nebula, Barton and Bruce shouted in unison just as Rogers shrieked, "A _wild guess_?" from somewhere inside the blackness surrounding them. "You based your master plan to save our lives off of a wild guess?"

"And it worked, didn't it?" Loki asked, and even though he could not see their faces, he could sense—and smell and taste—their fear. "I know what you are thinking but who could have known that Odin used a lie to tell the truth?" Despite the fact that his whole body was shaking with fear, Loki giggled. "That is rather brilliant, actually."

"You really are the worst," said Bruce just as Thor grumbled, "That bastard."

"That accursed old bastard," Valkyrie concurred, breathlessly.

"Be still!" commanded Nemesis and her voice rang out from nowhere and everywhere at once, like a cacophony of demons chattering in the depths of Hel. "This is how I existed before the dawn of creation. This is what was before the universe." She paused for breath and Loki tried to think but the power of his mind remained out of his reach in the blackness surrounding him and he tried to swallow once more.

"Well, not quite," said Nemesis and even as she was saying this, Loki's body became weightless and the breathing of the others lapsed into silence.

"Thor?" asked Loki even though he knew that he was now alone. "Brother?" he asked again, his voice scared and small and shaking.

There was no answer, no magic.

There was nothing.

* * *

 _Notes :  
~ __First, as I said, this took me way too long and I can only hope that I will be able to upload the next chapter, which is, again, mostly written in its unedited form, a bit more quickly. But I am not going to make any promises.  
~ __Second, I would like to thank all those who recently started reviewing this. Aeon225, LokiRogers, BenevolentCupboardhatch, your comments and thoughts on this mean a lot and keep me going when I think it's mostly my friends who read this and, well, why bother? I also appreciate everyone who recently started following/favoriting. Your support too means a lot. And, Selina, I appreciate your reviews as well. You are absolutely right in saying that Clint did not evolve throughout the story but that is because he is going mad with grief and there usually isn't much psychological evolution when someone is just succumbing to their mind. I agree that it is frustrating, it was even frustrating for me writing it at times, but I think that is what happens if people can no longer think clearly. And, yes, of course, Loki was thinking of Odin when the others asked him what soul Hela would want more than his in chapter 38. Thank you for reading!  
~_ _Third, I absolutely enjoyed to write a Loki that is no longer holding himself entirely reserved around everyone and I found it fascinating how, with him opening up a bit and letting some of those feelings he previously suppressed out, he ended up being powerless against his emotions, particularly when it comes to Frigga and her death (speaking of Pandora's box, huh, Ravenleaf?). And yes, I also wrote another OS about Loki reacting to Frigga's death yesterday, so you might be right if you assumed that I am far too hooked on this at the moment.  
~ __Fourth, thank you again for the Indiana Jones idea, Akira. Credit goes to you!_

 _See y'all in a bit._


	47. The truth I must learn

**Okay, so the update did come a little quicker this time and it is quite possibly the longest chapter I ever wrote but I did not want to split it up into parts. I hope you don't mind its length. If it drags, please tell me. Now, onwards with Nemesis. Enjoy!**

* * *

#47

"Lokeeeee!" cried Thor and he could not tell whether it was a disappointed rebuke, an angry command or a desperate plea for help. It was probably all of that at once and it did not even matter because Loki was no longer there. No one was. There was nothing there either, nothing but a black void that had devoured the entire world. There was nothing to see, no air to breathe, no sound to hear, nothing to smell or to touch, and there was no gravity. The Thundergod tried to move, stretching out his arms and kicking his legs, but he did not feel his body. "Brother!" he screamed again, just to make sure he still had a voice, even though the nothingness around him swallowed the echo of his words. "Nemesis! Can anyone hear me? Helloooooo?!"

Nothing.

 _Damn you, brother_. The thought was a sheer reflex and Thor was ashamed of it but, then again, it was Loki who had retrieved the book from Kamar Taj and presented it to them as if it held the answer to all their questions. It was Loki who had discarded his warning that they should not place the stone in the lock after chiding _him_ for making irresponsible decisions in the heat of the moment and after bringing to their attention that Frigga had told him to find Nemesis, not to free her, and that those were not the same things. But freed her they had, and a nagging voice in the back of Thor's head whispered to him that Loki had known exactly that this was going to happen.

"What did he even try to accomplish?" Steve had asked earlier and Thor had asked himself that same question far more often than he would have liked during the past years. He wanted to trust his brother, he really wanted to, but he also knew that Loki would never grant him access to the convoluted maze that was his mind. By all the Realms, he probably did not have access to all its paths himself, which made things so much more complicated and would continue to do so, should there be a future for them.

Thor tried to push those thoughts away, reminding himself that Loki no longer wished him any harm and that his first instinct could no longer be to blame every unforeseen development on him. Yes, Loki had led him and the Avengers to believe that Ragnarok was not a real threat when he had not clarified after their return from Niflheim that his words had been a mere deception constructed to outwit Hela. But he had also dropped the remark that they should build the gauntlet just in case he had been wrong about the Twilight of the Gods being just a prophecy.

Which meant, Thor realized, that this was not about Loki at all.

Unless Loki had known about Nemesis and the seventh stone all along because Odin had not entombed it deep beneath the vaults of the Realm Eternal with a spell and Loki had studied it during the time he had sat on Asgard's throne in the Allfather's guise and he had written the book of Nemesis and enchanted its lock and then hidden it in the library of the Masters of the Mystic Arts and then allowed Hela to have the stone only to try and retrieve it by letting Thanos kill him and then concocting a scheme to retrieve it after Thor brought him back from the Realm of the Dead when his first attempt to retrieve it failed, this could not be about him.

The thought alone was ridiculous.

Even though Thor knew that he should be careful with such a conclusion whenever his scheming little brother was involved, he was sure that not even Loki's mind could birth a plan as obscure as this. Not to mention that Hela had confirmed much of Loki's guesswork with her emotional reactions and that Wong had not contradicted his little brother when he had told them that the book of Nemesis had been kept safe in the library of the Masters of the Mystic Arts for eons.

No, this was about Odin, who had told the lie of Ragnarok in order to conceal the truth of Nemesis. This was about his father and predecessor. The man whom he had admired with a burning passion for almost all his life. The man whose high expectations he had wished to satisfy so desperately that his need to please him and rise in his esteem had blinded him to almost everything else. The man who had built the Golden City on a foundation of blood, lies, exploitation, violence and death while proclaiming that a wise king never sought out war. The man who had lied to him in ways Loki never had. The man whom he still loved, still mourned, but who had never been the man he had thought him to be.

"I see," murmured the soothing and simultaneously glacial voice of Nemesis, "your mind is open now, Thunderer."

Thor needed a moment to find his voice and even when he did, he stammered. "I-is that the truth I m-must learn?" he asked in a small voice, referring to the directive the Goddess had uttered earlier. "That my father was a liar?"

"That is part of it," said Nemesis. "Are you prepared to learn all of it?"

He was not. "Where is Loki?" asked Thor and, in that moment, he became painfully aware of the fact that no matter how badly they had physically and emotionally wounded each other in the past—no matter how ruthlessly they had fought and insulted each other and questioned each other's love and loyalty and screamed at each other and wished the other harm out of sheer despair—their first instinct had always been and would always be to protect each other from anyone else wishing them harm. " _Where_ is my brother?"

"This is not about Loki," said Nemesis, her voice purling like a shallow stream. "Loki understands. You do not."

"Wh-what is happening here?" Thor asked, the questions suddenly tumbling out of his mouth like a snowball rolling downhill and turning into an avalanche. "Why am I alone? Where are my friends? Wh-what is the reason for all this? Why did you call _me_? Why did you bring me here? Are we supposed to save the universe or will you take it all back? Is Ragnarok real?"

A faintly condescending laugh rang out somewhere in the darkness. "That depends," said Nemesis.

Thor gulped, his nerves stretched as tight as a bowstring. "On what?"

"On the lesson you learn from the truth," said Nemesis.

Thor let out a trembling breath, or at least he thought he did. With the blackness muddling his mind, he could no longer be sure that he was even there. "Fine," he conceded. "Tell me."

"This is what was before the universe," Nemesis began, repeating her earlier words. "I was the first being to ever exist, the first being to be born from the nothingness that came before Creation and in it, I remained alone. I remained alone, floating in the same darkness that now surrounds you for eons and I wished for companionship, yearned for it fiercely, while I waited and dreamed of stars and life and beautiful worlds filling up the blackness. The dreams sustained me for a long time but, eventually, when nothing and no one else was spawned by either the darkness or my restless imagination, I grew tired of my loneliness and my tiredness soon turned into despair. One day, even if the concepts of day and night did not yet exist at that time, I could no longer bear it, and I willed my essence to shatter."

The darkness around Thor lit up and the projection of Nemesis appeared in all her ethereal glory only to burst asunder in a colorful flash of light. Thor gasped as the Infinity Stones shot from the body of the Goddess that no longer was into the blackness like shards of glass, a million celestial alignments exploding to life in their wake, lighting up the darkness. And in the dim light, the Thundergod could see the remaining particles of energy that had once been Nemesis's body congealing into a black gem.

"My conscience and my power poured into that gem and from it grew a tree so powerful and so resilient that nothing could ever hope to cut its branches," the voice of Nemesis continued from somewhere in the newborn universe in front of Thor's eyes. "A tree so beautiful that it would be gazed upon with admiration and humility for eons henceforth. A tree whose existence the Aesir became aware of and named Yggdrasil."

Thor watched the World Ash grow into existence from nothing and he watched a cave grow within its trunk and within that cave grew a well and, from within that well, emerged the Norns, the three goddesses of fate, who began to weave the threads of fate for men and gods alike. As soon as they took up their work, the Nine Worlds grew from the tree's branches. He watched Asgard, Muspelheim, Jotunheim, Svartalfheim, Alfheim, Niflheim, Nidavellir, Vanaheim and Midgard blooming to life from the branches of Yggdrasil like buds on a cherry tree.

"Shortly after I ended my life," said Nemesis, "I had to watch from afar how all of my dreams were coming true indeed and I longed to be reborn to experience the marvels of a blackness filled with life and light in the flesh. My conscience along with the powers of my imagination endured, clinging to the foolish hope that one day I would be reborn among them. This thought of mine was pulsating through the World Tree when the newly created worlds were still young, sending pleas for help across the worlds that I be reunited with the splinters of my corporeal form. But my pleas," Nemesis said solemnly, "remained unheard for eons."

The history of the newborn universe flickered to life in front of Thor's eyes. He watched his grandfather Búri, the first Asgardian to ever rule, vanquish the armies of Jotunheim, Svartalfheim and Muspelheim, slashing giant throat after demon throat and, through bloodshed and war, ensuring Asgard's hegemony across the Realms. He watched Bor slaughter Loki's ancestors one by one, their red eyes glaring with the terror of death and pain, blood smeared across their hideous blue visages. He watched Búri live a life of bliss for eons until the time had come to pass his duties along to his son Bor, who was more susceptible to the silent pleas that the conscience of Nemesis passed on to the Aesir through the dreams instilled by Yggdrasil's magic pulsating through the air. He watched Bor collect the Reality Stone, the Time Stone and the Space Stone with his three sons Odin, Vili and Vé. He watched Malekith and the Dark Elves attack Asgard for the Aether and then flee with it to their homelands of ragged mountains. He watched Bor charge after them, unprepared though Asgard had been, and sacrifice a great many Asgardian blades on the volcanic fields of Svartalfheim for their victory. He watched Bor extract some of the Aether's powers into a golden scepter before he issued the order to bury it deep, deep where none would find it again.

"Before he could do anymore to ensure Asgard's safety," the voice of Nemesis continued, "Bor fell victim to a terrible illness and Odin was entrusted with the task of ruling Asgard as his successor, which alarmed me, at least at first. Where Bor had been humble and gracious, your father was hungry for knowledge, bloodthirsty and restless. He took a wife and fathered Hela, who was all of these things and more. Her mind was filled with a terrible darkness that would drive her to do inexplicable things once she had come of age."

"Yeah, I saw," mumbled Thor.

"One day, Odin came to Yggdrasil in his quest for wisdom," said Nemesis, ignoring his interjection, and the scene unfolding in front of Thor showed Odin traveling to the cave inside the World Tree in a cloak, seeking the wisdom of the Norns in his quest to conquer the Realms. Thor watched with a heavy heart how his father found the black gem instead and seized it for himself. He watched him study it, sensing its power, learning of the stone's greatest fear that her reunion with the remaining shards of her being might cause the entire universe to collapse in upon itself, and then seal it deep below the vaults of Asgard beneath the Odinsword to ensure that none would ever dare to retrieve it. He watched Odin deliver the prophecy and grimaced. He watched Odin and his brothers drown entire civilizations in blood as they conquered the eight remaining worlds with Hela and subjected them to their will with the Asgardian armies behind them. He watched as they collected the remaining three Infinity Stones. He watched Vili's beheading on the battlefield in the fight for the Mind Stone. He watched how Odin threw Vé, his own brother, off the cliff on Vormir to obtain the Soul Stone, watched his neck shattering like glass on the rocky surface at its bottom.

A scream of terror escaped Thor's lips and he suddenly knew that his body was still attached to his mind because he felt the nausea curving upwards from his stomach to his throat. He briefly wondered what would happen if he vomited in that blackness but this thought too seemed ridiculous and he swallowed both the thought and the sensation.

"Despite the cruelty throbbing beneath his chest, I found myself overwhelmed with a curiosity what Odin would do with the might given to Asgard," said Nemesis. "I watched in awe as Odin created a sustaining energy source from the stones he had collected by fusing them with the magic of Yggdrasil; a power that would go down in history as the Odinforce and that will have no equal for as long as the universe remains. I watched in awe as he infused a loyal soldier of his with the power to see into the universe and all souls residing within it. I watched him create a magical bridge that shone in the brightest of colors and allowed the Aesir to travel between worlds whenever they pleased without as much as scratch; and that they named Birfröst while the primitive earthlings simply named it 'rainbow' after they had caught a glimpse of its shine on their skies during the travels of the Gods. I watched him infuse the magic of the Aether into a few selected beings whom he thought capable of wielding such force. I watched him instruct the dwarves, who operated the magical forges of Nidavellir, to create a weapon that would be able to harness the energy of the Power Stone and that would later become Gungnir, a formidable spear feared across all words. I watched in awe as Odin created many more miracles that I would never have been able to dream with my powers."

Thor could only stare as the scenery unfolded in front of his eyes. There he was, his powerful father, building the universe with his own hands, and all the Thundergod had done after coming of age was bringing it to ruin.

"Odin was cruel, yes," said Nemesis, "I sensed it, but he was also fiercely intelligent and incredibly resourceful and, suddenly, the thought of what he could do with the universe I had only imagined enthralled me. Sealed away in my prison with a spell that no being could ever hope to break as long as the Allfather still lived, I drew immense pleasure from this universe and from all the love and passion, all the joy and malice, all the chaos and destruction that the Aesir infested upon it. I feasted on the fruits of my dreams; feasting like maggots on a rotten apple in a state of morbid bliss. Until my children called for me."

The darkness around Thor seemed to thicken with an invisible threat and then filled with shrill cries for help that set every single nerve in the Thundergod's body on fire and he shuddered when he remembered that Loki had heard those screams inside his head. _Oh brother, I wish you were here with me_.

"They jolted me out of my slumber and I came to understand that the stones, which had been birthed by my innocent wish for companionship, were suffering under the malice of the Allfather's reign. I feared for them and mourned for them and my conscience reached out to Odin's twisted mind, whispering to him that what he had prophesied to his people as Ragnarök would truly be upon him if he continued down his path of bloodshed and destruction. 'You have gained much from my essence, Allfather,' I told him. 'Too much. Stop your conquest, set the stones free and no harm shall come to your people. If you choose to take no notice me, all that you value shall perish.'"

In front of Thor's eyes, Odin banished Hela, who violently opposed his decision to put an end to Asgard's aspiration for dominance, and then established peace across the Realms. He watched his marriage with Frigga and his own birth. He watched his infant self grow into a toddler. He watched the Valkyries fight back Hela when she broke out of her prison, watched them being slaughtered one by one, and his heart ached for Valkyrie. He watched the last Great War against Jotunheim and his lips opened in shock when he saw Odin stumble across an icy battlefield littered with Jotun corpses, his eye cut from its socket by a jagged, icy blade wielded by Laufey himself. His chest tightened when he watched Odin approach a small temple build of stone and his heart almost exploded when he saw Loki's infant self, lying on the floor, mindlessly discarded onto a frozen rock like waste material. He watched how Odin cradled the Jotun bundle to his chest, how he held Loki's small body with his blood-smeared hands and a scheming flicker in his eyes, and finally understood that Loki had been right and that, even though Odin had brought him home a brother, he had never taken Loki home as a son. A tear spilled out of Thor's good eye.

He watched Odin transform Loki into an Aesir with the power of the Reality Stone he had kept inside the golden scepter. He watched their child selves grow into young men. He watched Odin distribute the stones that had helped to ensure Asgard's position of hegemony for centuries across the stars lest they draw unwanted attention to his new, peaceful kingdom.

"Two of the stones, he brought to Midgard," said Nemesis. "One, the Time Stone, he sealed within a necklace that he gave to a young Midgardian scholar called Agamotto, whom he taught in magic to ensure Midgard's survival against any attack from the rest of the Realms and who would later establish the order of the Masters of the Mystic Arts with the help of its magic. The other, the Space Stone, he sealed within a glowing cube, which he buried it deep below the plains of Tønsberg after he had fought off the relentless armies of the Frost Giants and the mortals there ensured him their ever-lasting gratitude. The Power Stone, he sealed within a round artifact, which he brought to a forsaken, stony planet that he thought would never be set foot upon by anyone. The Soul Stone he returned to the place where he had sacrificed his brother, demanding Vé's life back in exchange for the gem to the ghostly entity that had claimed it, but was informed that a sacrifice made to the Soul Stone could not be reclaimed. So be it, thought Odin, for at least this stone will never be recovered by anyone else once they learn of the price that must be paid for its possession and thus the quest to collect them all will never be fulfilled. The Mind Stone, which Odin sensed to be one of the most treacherous, he sealed within a scepter he had forged by the same fires that had brought forth Gungnir and Mjølnir. For reasons unknown, he buried this scepter on an asteroid belt in the vicinity of Asgard. As soon as Odin had abandoned his murderous fantasies of omnipotence, Asgard prospered and turned into that beautiful, peaceful world I had imagined in the dreams that had sustained me before my physical demise. The stones' cries for help faded away."

The darkness around Thor stilled.

"The worlds were at peace," said Nemesis. "Soothed by the promise of peace and beauty I fell into a deep and satisfied, eon-lasting slumber in my prison and the existence of a being that birthed the Infinity Stones, if it was ever known at all, passed into history and from there into legend and then into myth. For eons to come, my existence remained a mystery to all but a few beings and those who did know, or suspected, simply called my conscience 'the seventh stone' for an ineffably long time. I slept as new worlds sprang into existence from the dreams of the Aesir beyond the branches of Yggdrasil and new life stirred awake in the vastness beyond the Nine Realms protected by Odin Allfather."

Again, Thor could only stare as worlds exploded into being in colorful flashes of light in front of his eyes.

"I slept as those beings grew conscious and their minds filled with dark thoughts and malevolent intents," said Nemesis. "I slept as those beings, who were as dangerous and deranged as they were smart and susceptible, began to hear whispers of the stones. I slept as countless of them set out to retrieve the stones from their hiding places. I slept as the stones wreaked havoc across the universe, growing ever more sentient with each wielder. I slept as a ruthless being bearing the name of Thanos set out on his merciless quest to destroy half of the universe with their help. I slept as this creature traveled to Nidavellir and asked Eitri of the dwarves to forge a Gauntlet that would be able to withstand the repercussions of using all six stones. I slept as Eitri ensured that the stones' magic would shrivel and die if they were ever again used for such atrocities as they had during the long and bloody reign of Odin. I slept as Odin watched the terror across the universe unfold, anxious but still confident that his son Thor—who, the Norns had assured him, was to grow into the greatest of all the Aesir—would fend off the threats looming beyond their borders. However, with the universe unraveling as a hunger for war and darkness grew in many hearts of its inhabitants, the threats built faster than even the Allfather could have imagined. His long reign, Odin suddenly sensed with unmistakable clarity, was unexpectedly coming to a swift end and that realization plunged him into insanity and despair. And so it came to pass that Odin decided to proclaim you king of Asgard before you were anywhere near ready for this task and before your brother could fully grow into the Tangler."

Thor gulped.

"Sensing the chaos erupting on and threatening the supremacy of Asgard in the aftermath of Odin's decision, I stirred again for the first time in eons, trying to warn the Allfather once more, but Odin's mind remained closed to me, every trace of his one so far-reaching conscience extinct. Still confined by the Allfather's spell, I could do nothing but watch. I tapped into the magic of Yggdrasil ever so desperately—trying to send out a warning to any magical being who might be willing to listen, trying to tell them what would happen if the Infinity Stones were to be abused once more—but all my pleas remained unheard. I tried to free myself, in vain at first, but eventually, the spell that had sealed me was broken. The Allfather had perished and I knew the universe would soon bear the damage of his passing. Listening to my children's desperate warnings, agonizing over my inability to save them or any of which I had dreamed, the walls confining me suddenly burst as the fires of Muspelheim consumed Asgard and burned it to the ground. Millennia after I had ended my own existence, I was finally free again."

"Until Odin's cast-out first-born daughter carried you deep into the frozen wastelands of Niflheim," whispered Thor.

"And, unfortunately, her mind too remained closed to me and while I brooded, trying to concoct a plan of how I could bring the stones within my reach again, your brother reached out, trying to bind his spirit to the Space Stone in his final moments. The sons of Odin, I decided then, were my only hope," Nemesis concluded. "So, I claimed Loki and then I called out to you."

"For what purpose?" Thor asked after a few heartbeats, every fiber in his body aching with grief and despair now that the grisly truth of Asgardian history had been revealed to him.

"To convince me," said Nemesis.

Thor opened his mouth to enquire the meaning of her words but just when he was about to voice his question, he understood. He _finally_ understood. "You feel like you have no choice but to take it all away," he gasped. "You think this universe cannot continue to exist after what my father and everyone else … after what they have done to you and your creation and your children. We befouled everything with our fatuity and our greed."

"You did," the Goddess confirmed.

"Which is why you will have to take it from us," whispered Thor. "Things must return to how they were before its dawn."

"Will I?" asked Nemesis. "Or is there still hope for the Aesir? If I return to you what you lost and what you wish me to pass back to you—all the souls my child devoured, the Realm Eternal—will you rise above your forebears?"

Thor gulped once more and the sound echoed so loudly in his ears that a shiver ran down his spine.

"Convince me, son of Odin, whom the Norns once prophesied to become the greatest of the Aesir," said Nemesis and then she fell silent and the blackness around him dissolved and Thor was back in Shuri's laboratory in Wakanda and his ears were ringing and the sudden, aggressive flashes of light around him were stabbing into his retinas and he sank to his knees, screwing up his eyes.

"Thor!" Valkyrie cried, her arms wrapping around him, and he greedily breathed in her smell. The mortals were there too and they asked things of him and told him things in return but Thor could not tell their voices apart.

"Where have you been?"

"Are you alright?"

"Where is Loki?"

"Suddenly, we were back here and you were gone for hours and the magic of Nemesis was gone but the book was still here …"

"Val read us the entire thing and holy fucking shit. This is messed up, man." That was the rabbit.

"What did she do to you?"

"What does she want?"

Thor blinked and slowly opened his eyes. The room and his friends' faces were a blur. "Wh-what do you mean where is Loki?"

"Wasn't he _with_ you?" asked Tony, an edge of alarm in his voice.

Thor blinked once more and his vision finally swam into focus as panic rose inside of him. "I thought he was with _you_?!"

* * *

 _Notes :_

 _There are a few references to Lord of the Rings in here, which I am sure you have noticed. When I first thought of Nemesis, by the way, I imagined her to look similar to Galadriel when she is tempted by the ring in Lothlórien but then I decided she should have black hair._

 _Now, where the Hel is Loki?_


	48. A lockless prison you built for yourself

#48

Loki was not with anyone except for the voices blathering inside his skull as they always did in times of crisis. Other than that, he was still alone in the blackness of the non-space that had existed before Creation— _Can you even speak of existing in the case of non-existence? … Fine, you can change the verb if you prefer although I would not know to what_ —and he was still straining to tap into the magic of the Infinity Stones that might have seemed out of reach but was not. Although, maybe it was, but trying to do something was better than screaming his lungs out for his life and his brother and receiving no response from the void. Loki had tried to detect a magical signature for hours—at least he thought it had been hours but who could tell, really, in the absence of time—because, in the midst of a crippling panic, he had suddenly come to a realization. After overcoming the initial terror of being confined to that freakish, torturing non-place with no air and no gravity and no sound and no light, Loki had become aware that his body was still in its Aesir form and that this meant that Nemesis had merely concealed the signatures of his own glamour and those of the stones. She had not extinguished their magic. There was still hope. He was still wearing the gauntlet with Mind, Power, Time and Space, and Reality was still locked inside of him. The fabric of the universe had not yet unraveled. He just needed to break the spell Nemesis had cast upon him in order to use the stones.

Just.

 _Well, good luck, you halfwit_ , snickered his inner voice. _However, you seem to be blatantly ignoring the tiny little detail that Nemesis is the mother of all things_. _Her power has no equal and you cannot hope to rival the omnipotence of her magic with your puny sorcery_.

 _I must do something_ , Loki countered with a growing annoyance over the fact that his own mind would not let him focus on the task he had set for himself.

 _That you must_ , replied the voice, _but do not be so foolish as to waste all your energy_. _You cannot know for how long she will be keeping you here_.

Loki gulped and a slick sheen of icy sweat chilled his neck and crept down his spine. "I shall name you Myrkriᵭ," he said aloud to distract himself from his accelerating heartrate and his quickening breath. _You cannot panic now_. _Not now_. _There is no one here to calm you down_. "Yes, that suits you."

 _Pardon me?_ enquired the scorned voice.

"Since we have known each other for quite a while now, I really think you should have a name," Loki chattered away to stifle the panic rising up from the depths of his stomach at the prospect of spending eternity in this non-place. "So that I can call upon you in times of need. You know, as the mortals do with their peculiar communicative devices. _Hello, Myrkriᵭ, this is Loki speaking_. _It just so happens that I am in an awfully self-destructive mood today_. _Could you please make an appearance and abuse me verbally_?" He giggled and the sound echoed through the void. Well, it did not really echo in the truest sense of the word, but once uttered, the words seemed to be gaining a lot more force than they had possessed as unspoken thoughts.

 _You are losing your mind_.

 _WELL, YES OF COURSE I AM LOSING MY MIND_! _I AM TRAPPED HERE, YOU DISEMBODIED, FEEBLE-MINDED LITTLE SHIT_!

 _You should ask yourself for what purpose_ , said Myrkriᵭ.

Well, that directive was helpful at last, because it calmed his racing thoughts and roused his intellect that had been numbed by fear and pure survival instincts. There had to be a reason that the Goddess was showing him—and maybe the others too—how she had existed before the beginning of things. There had to be a lesson he was to draw from the experience. _There is always a purpose to everything_ , Frigga's soothing voice trickled into his ear.

"I see," murmured the soothing and simultaneously glacial voice of Nemesis, "your mind is open now, Trickster."

 _I am seriously beginning to despise that name_. "Open to discuss my purpose in all of this? Hardly." Loki snorted a laugh even though he had never been in less of a laughing mood in all his life. Well, except for the time that he had spent with the Mad Titan, maybe. "Where is my brother?"

There was a faint smile in her words when the Goddess replied, "I am currently telling him the truth about the Allfather's reign."

"Ouch," Loki said casually but still felt a stab of pain inside his chest when he realized how Thor would suffer under the revelation of Odin's cruelty because the God of Thunder could not simply smother the love he felt for his father; not even after everything that had transpired. And Loki was truly amazed too that no matter how desperately he had wanted to hurt his oafish, self-righteous, condescending brother in the past, his first instinct had always been to keep their father from hurting him in his own, much more impactful way.

 _That is irrelevant now, you dolt_. _Focus_.

"Since my humble self has been under no more illusion regarding Odin's, well, I suppose you could call it character for years, what is it that you are going to reveal to _me_?" Loki brought himself to ask. "Or are you simply testing whether I am foolish enough to try to undo your magic?"

Another smile he could only hear. "You are many things, Loki of Jotunheim and Asgard," said Nemesis, "but a fool is not one of them."

 _So far, so good_. "What is your," Loki began and then paused to think of the right word, settling for, "objective? Why are you showing my brother how Odin built his empire?"

The voice of Nemesis smiled once more in the darkness. "What do you think?"

"Being the omnipotent being that you are, I am sure you are aware of my every thought," Loki answered and found himself unable to keep his voice from turning into a soft growl.

"I am. And your mind's eye should not be fixed on your brother right now. You brought grave imbalance to the universe with your actions," said Nemesis, her voice suddenly as chilly as a snowstorm raging deep within the heart of Jotunheim, and Loki gulped, involuntarily. "Some of it was the Allfather's doing, some of it was the Titan's doing, some of it your own. You are beginning to understand the many layers of your conflicted mind but it still remains a mystery to you what your purpose is, even if the spirit of your mother dwelling in Valhalla told you that, deep within yourself, you already know."

Loki swallowed a sob.

"You do not," Nemesis clarified. "Not yet. When your hands touched my book, you had the intellectual capacity to understand that a cancer has been growing inside the belly of Asgard since the beginning of time, spreading throughout the universe, infecting everything in its wake, and that Ragnarok would purge creation of this cancer. And you accepted this, because you long ago discovered the simple truth that there are no truths. That creation and destruction are one and the same. That light has no meaning without darkness. That righteousness has no meaning without immorality. That order has no meaning without chaos."

Loki's lips parted but there were no words that could have uttered what he felt.

"Your first impulse, stirring deep within your own self, hidden from your consciousness, was to let it happen," said Nemesis, "because you believed, and still believe, that some things can only be redeemed through obliteration and rebirth. That some people cannot be saved and that change and growth are impossible for some things in _this_ life."

"Th-that is not true," Loki protested even though he could not be sure. Myrkriᵭ's lingering presence in his own mind was testament enough to that.

"So, the question I have for _you_ ," said Nemesis without heeding his interjection, "is overwhelmingly simple and devastatingly intricate at the same time: Do you wish to remain in the lockless prison you have built for yourself? What lesson are _you_ willing to take from _your_ past?"

"The t-truth of my p-past?" Loki repeated in a small voice as the darkness around him exploded in colorful lights and showed himself as a small boy, tiptoeing through the garden of his mother, studying every plant with an expression of awe stamped across his innocent, pale, little face. He watched his child self and saw his aura swirling around him like wisps of clouds in bright shades the colors of emerald, lime and foliage leaves. It was in his mother's garden that he had understood with a breathtaking clarity at a very young age that reality as such did not exist. That, if anything, what those around him referred to as reality was just a mashup of an unlimited number of individual perceptions. Such as the rose that was both beautiful to look at and painful to touch. Such as the apple that was both deliciously sweet and in the first stage of decay and corruption. Such as the sky that remained the sky even when veiled by clouds. Such as the rain that was a curse to the people but a blessing to the plants.

He had been so enthralled by the realization that he had started to play tricks upon the people of Asgard to test their perception and was amazed when he found out that they fell for them every single time because they wanted to believe in their reality so desperately that they remained blind to all others. He began to tell lies then—the innocent lies of a child with infinite powers of imagination—just to see if people would believe them and they did.

There was power in that, young Loki recognized. Much more power than there was in a blow to the ribs, and that satisfied him deeply. There was even more power in the magic pulsating through the veins of Asgard and Nemesis showed him the moment in which he had first sensed that power. It was in the dining room a few years later when the family was seated around a bountiful dinner table and Odin was expressing his frustration with his sons' "indecent behavior" that was "improper for princes" and "served only to reflect discredit on Asgard".

"But we meant—" Thor began and Loki knew that he would have said "no disrespect" because that was his brother's favored excuse had Odin not cut off his words with that menacing stare of his. Their father continued to remind Thor that the successor to the throne should conduct himself better and then he fixed his gleaming eye on Loki even though playing a trick on the Prince of Alfheim during his annual diplomatic visit to Asgard had not been his idea—miraculously, really—but Odin chided him anyway because he was convinced that Loki had been the mastermind behind the charade even after Thor told him otherwise.

Loki felt small and helpless, and anger rose inside of him. He yearned for the power to stifle his father's harangue and he focused all his thoughts on that single wish, the Allfather's words fading into a wordless murmur, and Yggdrasil granted it to him, allowing him to tap into the magic that filled the air for the first time. Loki was surprised, curious, and frightened all at once when he felt the unlimited potential of the glamour pulsating all around him and he tapped into it without a second or even a first thought and the wood in the fireplace, unlit during that time of the year, exploded into crackling flames that startled both his parents and his brother.

A satisfying smirk appeared on Loki's lips and Odin's one eye glowered at him. Loki glowered back.

"You can wield magic," said Frigga with a smile and a flicker of admiration in her eyes.

Odin grunted his dissatisfaction. "Now, that was all that we needed." He rose from the table, scolded his sons once more and then excused himself with a warning, one-eyed glance at his wife that articulated perfectly that she was to attend to the matter of disciplining the unruly princes further.

And Frigga did attend to it. To him. She schooled him in the ways of Asgardian magic and taught him how to focus his thoughts in order to manipulate the impulses of the glamour that could easily corrupt him, practicing with him for two hours every morning after breakfast. She gave him books to read and discussed the dangers of the spells explained inside of them with him. Soon, Loki became a skilled sorcerer and he found that casting illusions and shrouding himself in the guise of others or entirely from view was an even better way to test people's perception of reality. The more he became aware of the magical veins permeating the Realm Eternal, the more he discovered and the more he discovered, the more he learned. Telekinesis. Teleportation. Astral projection. Hypnosis. Molecular arrangement. Levitation. Yet, most importantly, he learned how to shape-shift instead of casting mere illusions and how to unveil secret pathways to the other Realms that could otherwise only be accessed via the Rainbow Bridge and that the Allfather did not wish anyone to discover.

Watching his young self thrive with every new spell he mastered through Nemesis's projections, Loki slowly began to understand where he had gone wrong. He had taken such incredible pleasure in wielding magic that he had aspired to be a powerful sorcerer and he had believed, firmly and beyond all doubt, that a powerful sorcerer was who he would grow up to be. Until Odin had made it abundantly clear to him that excelling in wielding magic was not enough for a prince of Asgard and that Loki needed to be a warrior as well if he was ever going to ascend to the throne. Listening to the Allfather speaking these words now, Loki could recognize the true intent behind them: Odin feared Loki's powers, feared the magic he would wield one day, feared to be surpassed in knowledge, and thus sought to control his adoptive son by diverting his attention to techniques he could not so swiftly master in order to diminish his confidence.

Yet, hearing those words as a young man, Loki had taken them as undisputed evidence that his own skills paled in comparison to those of his mighty brother, who excelled on the training grounds and bested everyone who fought him, and that, as a consequence, he would never be good enough if he were truly to be himself. And this realization, as well the jealousy and anger at both himself and his brother that began to stir inside of him, had corrupted his mind. Slowly, at first, but the more Nemesis revealed to him, the clearer he could see the bright green colors of his aura darkening. Loki saw himself withdraw from the world, from his family, spending more and more time alone, in the library or in other quiet places, nursing his jealousy and his anger and his self-doubts until Myrkriᵭ's voice rose from the depths of the turbulent waves raging through his mind for the first time.

Loki opposed it at first, knowing that it was a mere thought and confident that he could silence it, but he had withdrawn so far from the world around him that he no longer dared to ask for counsel when he found himself unable to silence it. Instead, he tried to fight this battle alone, oblivious to the fact that some battles were not meant to be fought alone.

By the time Thor was to be crowned King of Asgard, Myrkriᵭ had been a constant companion inside his own head and commanded him to thwart the coronation ceremony. Loki knew, had known from the first, that Myrkriᵭ's intentions were malevolent and so he initially refused but then the voice convinced him that he would do the right thing if he prevented the coronation because his brother—reckless, self-absorbed and power-hungry as he still was at that time—was nowhere near ready to rule. Despite a subconscious awareness that Myrkriᵭ's counsel was and had always been foul, Loki began to believe that he would do Asgard a favor and thus he traveled a secret pathway to Jotunheim to ally himself with those he knew would disturb the peace and alert the Allfather enough to reconsider his decision.

Loki gulped when he sensed with every fiber of his being what the Goddess was going to show him next and a shiver crept down his neck and spine when the events leading to his downfall unfolded in front of his eyes. He saw himself fighting on Jotunheim, saw his lips gape open in terror, his eyes flickering with disbelief and fear when a Frost Giant grabbed his arm and his skin turned blue, a coldness seeping into his bones. He saw himself softly whimpering a voiceless 'no' when he began to suspect that the sole reason he had always felt different was because he _was_ different. He saw himself in the vault of Asgard shortly after their return from Jotunheim and Thor's banishment. He saw himself standing in front of the Casket of Ancient Winters, his fingers hovering in the air because he was afraid to touch it, the knowledge that his life would never be the same if his silent suspicions were confirmed pumping through his bloodstream and accelerating his heart. He saw Odin coming after him and heard himself ask whether he was cursed. He heard Odin tell him how he had found him as a baby, abandoned and left to die, how he was the bloodson of Laufey, how the Allfather had taken him in to establish peace between the two warring kingdoms; and Loki's younger self's eyes painfully reflected how his world had shattered to pieces in that moment. The fear, the disbelief, the shock, the pain; they were all visible, palpable, and Loki's chest tightened as he watched himself crumble. He heard himself cry, asking, still full of hope but even more full of despair whether he was nothing more than another stolen relic, locked up in the vaults of Asgard until the Allfather might have use of him, asking why the truth had been kept from him. He felt the thought that was going to make him lose his mind grow invisibly in the darkness behind Nemesis's projections. _Because I am the monster that parents tell their children about at night_. _The monster_. _THE MONSTER_. _YOU, LOKI, ARE A MONSTER_.

Having heard all the terrible tales about Jotunheim's folk as a child, Loki had believed this instantly, and no one had convinced him of the contrary. Not even Frigga. Not even his mother had tried to convince him that Frost Giants were not monsters. On the contrary, she had told him that he must know they loved him _despite_ the fact that he was one of them and, in that instant, he had felt betrayed by even his beloved mother dictating him how to feel in his most vulnerable of moments. But then, she had appointed him the rightful king of Asgard as long as Odin rested and Thor remained in exile shortly after that, and he had felt nothing but confusion and rage.

Much of what Nemesis showed him next was still a blur in his own memory. He watched himself sitting on the throne, most of his emotions safely suppressed until Sif let him feel that he had no right to sit on Hlidskjalf. He watched as he sent the destroyer to Midgard to kill Thor in a fit of madness in order to prove that he could do right by Asgard once Odin was dead and kingship would pass onto him. He watched how he attempted to destroy his birth planet to obliterate the frozen Hel that had spawned him as if it would erase what he had learned and how Thor returned and how he fought him in the observatory and Loki was shocked to realize how little he remembered of that confrontation. He watched the Bifrost implode, watched him and Thor fall from the bridge, falling until Odin came to rescue them. For a moment, there was hope sprouting inside his chest, but Odin crushed it with two simple words and, suddenly, Loki was no longer under any illusion that he deserved to live among the people of Asgard. He knew, or thought he knew, that he had failed and would never rise in the Allfather's esteem. Not as an Aesir, not as a sorcerer, not as a son, not as a prince, not as a warrior. And thus he let go of his need to be accepted for who he was because who he was would never be enough for anyone, not even his own family.

Loki heard Thor's outcry of pain when his brother's fingers loosened around Gungnir and he plunged into the abyss of space, falling without the insight that the only reason Odin had made him feel weak was because he feared his strength. Falling until the stars devoured him whole and spit him out at Thanos's feet with the firm belief that he was unworthy and unlovable.

The projection faded and Loki felt tears streaming down his face as the words Thor had uttered earlier that day—was it even still that day?—were clattering through his skull. _How is that for a reveal_? He choked on a sob when his mind connected the dots. Letting go had been an absolute necessity, yes, but he had let go of the wrong things in the wrong way.

"I see," whispered Nemesis, almost solemnly. "I do not even need to show you what comes next."

"No," Loki sniveled; not only because he still could not bear the thought of seeing his arrival in the Mad Titan's lair and everything that followed, but because, more importantly, he understood now, _really_ understood, how Frigga's words made sense. _Embrace your chaos_. _Embrace your **power**_.

"Very well, then, Loki, child of the Aesir and the Giants, convince me that you no longer wish to be a prisoner," said Nemesis and then she fell silent and the blackness around him dissolved and Loki was back in Shuri's laboratory in Wakanda and his ears were ringing and the sudden, aggressive flashes of light around him were stabbing into his retinas and he sank to his knees, screwing up his eyes.

" _There_ he is!" someone screamed and Loki neither understood the meaning of the emphasis nor did he know where the voice was coming from because the world around him would not stop spinning.

"Loki!" screamed Thor and even though Loki could not see him—to Hel with those lights—he could feel his brother sliding down beside him and looping his strong arms around his trembling frame. "Say something!"

"By Yggdrasil, let him breathe, will you?" came from Valkyrie.

"I am f-fine," Loki stammered. He forced his eyes open but his brother's face was a blur. "Wh-what did she tell you?"

"To convince her that there is still hope for the Aesir." Thor gulped. "Did she tell you the same?"

Loki drew in a sharp breath. "Not quite." He blinked until his brother's face and the room behind it finally swam into focus. The Infinity Stones, he realized, were no longer crying out. The magic in the air had stilled. Thankfully, they still had some time left. "How are you planning to do that?"

Thor looked absolutely horrified at the question. "There _is_ no way," he whispered, and he looked so broken and doubtful and insecure that Loki's heart gave a violent lurch.

"Of course there is," Loki yelled and his voice sounded alien and distorted in his own ears. "There must be. Why else would we still _be_ here?" He paused, groping for his eloquence that seemed to be lying dormant somewhere in his fogged head. "She showed you the history of Asgard, did she not? Father's past?"

"And she expects me to rise above my forebears," Thor answered. "But how could I ever do that if the same blood is flowing through my—"

"When will you understand that you have _already_ risen above them?" Loki placed his hands upon his brother's shoulders and shook him; shook him much more violently than he had intended. "You are humbled by your failures still while those who came before you blatantly ignored them. And that makes you the right person to sit on that throne if there ever again should be one."

Thor sobbed and rested his forehead against Loki's, who jerked away from such an exorbitant display of affection before the conscious part of his mind realized what his body was doing.

"Sorry," Thor mumbled, then harrumphed. "But what are we—" He interrupted himself when the seventh stone containing the conscience of Nemesis broke free and the lock made of the near-indestructible volcanic rock from Svartalfheim shattered like a glass clattering to the floor.

Well, maybe they did not have any time left after all. _Too bad_.

Thor and Loki shot to their feet instantly.

"This can't be good," came from Stark and the raccoon.

The stone hovered in the air, emitting waves of energy that crackled and hissed and snarled.

The mortals stumbled backwards in awe.

The stone released a projection of Nemesis that looked like a mere projection to the eye but was far more powerful than that because the air inside the room was quickly thickening with magic, invisible fumes rising up and sucking in the oxygen.

"Convince me, sons of Odin," commanded the Goddess.

* * *

 _Notes :_

 _~ Ok, so first of all, I'd like to know what you think about Loki giving the voice a name, which is a variation from the word "dark" in Icelandic by the way and is as such dreadfully clichéd but also has a nice ring to it._  
 _~ Second, the "cancer growing inside of Asgard" thing is what Loki tells Thor in the 'Thor: Heaven and Earth' comic run by Paul Jenkins (2011) when he tries to convince his brother that Ragnarok needs to happen because creation needs to be purged of that cancer and that, in this way, even destruction serves a purpose and that this is, ultimately, how he—the liar, the trickster—serves a purpose._  
 _~ Third, I really wanted to show what Akira hinted at in her last review, namely that Nemesis was taking "both Loki and Thor to apparently the same place at the same time (though there doesn't seem to be any concept of place and time) but separating them nonetheless", which is exactly what happens here and which is why I decided to use the same wording for some lines (such as the "I see your mind is open now, Thunderer/Trickster" introduction or the "Convince me" closing followed by the exact same paragraph describing how they are released back into Wakanda). Plus, they're both thinking about how their first impulse has always been to protect the other from harm as soon as Nemesis appears, which happened automatically while I was writing and thought was pretty neat._  
 _~ Fourth, there are different things Thor and Loki need to understand. Thor needs to overcome his fear of never being able to surpass the father he held in such high esteem for almost all his life (which was made quite clear in Endgame as well) and Loki needs to truly understand why his own mind has always worked against him. You may think that this chapter is sort of 'unnecessary' because Frigga already told Loki to embrace his chaos and all that and her words already took a weight off his chest. Yet, being told something is still not the same as understanding it for yourself and I have always wanted to have a scene in this fic where Loki is forced to reflect upon his childhood and his youth in order to be able to really grasp why and how his mind has been 'corrupted'._  
 _~ That being said, now all they have to do is to ACTUALLY convince Nemesis. Stay tuned!_

 _Oh, and Ravenleaf, the part your story actually helped me with was the dinner conversation! Thank you again! :)_


	49. This is how everything exists

**Can y'all believe I spent six whole hours just proofreading and editing this and changing and rechanging the tiniest clauses again and again and again? Damn, my perfectionism really went wild today.**

* * *

#49

"Convince me," Nemesis repeated, "to _not_ take away the creation you befouled."

Loki glanced at the projection, which was, quite logically, so much more powerful and, albeit translucent, so much more corporeal than any projection he had ever faced, and then at the mortals, at the fear paling their faces, his mind screaming at him to think. _Just think, Loki_. _Think_! _That is how you_ _ **win**_! But his brain still refused to work properly and, apparently, so did Thor's. His big brother was standing in front of Nemesis, his feet shoulder-with apart, his arms hanging loosely by his side, and he was gaping at the Goddess like a flea-brained idiot.

"Right about now would be the perfect moment for either of you to _fucking_ say something!" came a not-so-encouraging screech from the raccoon.

Thor looked at Rocket and gave a nod that was painfully reluctant. "Nemesis, please." His voice was shaking and there were tears shimmering in his eyes but he drew himself to his full height and faced the Goddess anyway. "If you take it all away now," the Thundergod began, "you will never know if we could do better. And we _can_ do better, I swear it. The only reason we messed up is because the truth was kept from us. We based all our actions on a foundation of _lies_." He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and even though his voice was still trembling, it gained force when he continued. "I was raised to be a king with no knowledge of the threats I would have to face as soon as I sat down on the throne. I had no knowledge of the Infinity Stones before the Tesseract and the scepter showed up. I had no knowledge of their significance for Asgard and for the continuity of our universe. I had no idea that they needed protection from corruption and that this would have been my primary …"

"Protection from corruption," Loki quietly repeated to himself and, finally, his thoughts were once more in motion, hurtling off through the maze of his mind as his brother's words faded into a dull, wordless murmur. _I had no knowledge of the significance of the Infinity Stones_. _A cancer has been growing inside the belly of Asgard since the beginning of time, spreading throughout the universe, infecting everything in its wake_ … _We are powerful, ethereal beings that have been confined to these stone casings since the dawn of the universe, forever enslaved, forever bound by the desires of our wielders_ … _But_ w _e crave power of our own, all of us_ … _Since the dawn of the universe_ … _Since the beginning of time_ … _Ragnarok will purge creation of this cancer_ … _Child, we have no creator_. _We_ _ **are**_ _the origin of creation_ … _cancer … craving power … the origin ... the beginning_.

"We got it all wrong!" Loki cried out before he could bite his suicidally quick tongue, his whole body shaking with fear when the ancient force standing in front of him narrowed her piercing black gaze at him. Thor startled too, staring at him with almost palpable unease. " _We_ are not the cancer, brother," Loki continued and then faced Nemesis, his heart thundering against his ribcage. "It was not _us_ who tainted your children or your creation! It was your children who tainted _us_! The lure of their power is the origin of everything. It is what drove—"

"How dare you?" Nemesis shouted, her voice trembling with disappointment and rage. "I birthed your universe because I yearned for companionship and the stones suffered under the cruelty of the man you called father! Your forebears _corrupted_ them. They corrupted my innocent dream!"

"That is not true," Loki whispered, his heart slowly calming. _You must show her_ , he pleaded with the Mind Stone. _You must_. _I am begging you_. _Show her the truth_. _SHOW HER_! Mind stirred in protest at first but then the stone complied and a cacophony of voices poured into the room, voices speaking of the desire to possess, to kill, to destroy, to slaughter, to enslave, to mow down entire civilizations like wheat in a field; Odin's voice, Thanos's voice, Ronan's voice, Ego's voice, and the voices of many, many others, hungering for power and blood.

Nemesis stared, aghast. "How …"

"Your children did that to them," said Loki.

" _I_ did that to them," corrected the voice of the Mind Stone and Loki was no less astonished than the mortals were when he heard it outside of his own head. "I filled their thoughts with poison."

"Why?" gasped Nemesis.

"Because I enjoyed it," replied the Mind Stone. "And because I needed a mind I could devour and a body that I could make my own."

"You shall return to me promptly," cried Nemesis, her voice like a sad song as her projection began to tremble. Magic roared through the room, shaking the palace's foundations to the core. "There is no hope for you!"

 _Oh no_ , Loki thought. Why did he always have to say the wrong things, which were actually the right things, but were never _really_ the right things? His mind almost tripped over itself when Mind protested on the vibranium gauntlet and Reality stirred inside of him and the Soul Stone began to flicker in the demolished Infinity Gauntlet, struggling against the magical pull rising in the air. Loki swallowed as he mentally held on to the gauntlet and tried to bind their signatures to his own, knowing that all his attempts were futile.

 _Or were they_?

 _You have absorbed our signatures into your own magic in a way not even the mightiest of stone wielders has accomplished_.

 _Embrace your chaos_. _**Embrace your power**_.

Loki felt an enormous wave of magic roaring up from deep within him and the Mind Stone tapped into it, its powers coalescing with his own glamour. Power, Space and Time broke free from the gauntlet on his hand, however, and floated in the air for a moment before Nemesis pulled them towards her with her slender fingers and, then, sucked them into her mouth. As soon as she had devoured three of her children, her translucent frame turned flesh and she halted for a moment, breathing greedily. Loki could not imagine the feeling of finally _being_ again after fourteen _billion_ years of captivity inside a tiny gem but then, again, there would be no air for her to breathe if she ate them all. There would be nothing.

"I erred," Nemesis whispered, almost to herself as she was licking her lips. "How could I err so terribly?"

"You did not!" Loki shouted.

"Please, hear us out!" begged Thor. "If you really want us to convince you, you _must_ hear us out!"

The eyes of the Goddess narrowed first at Thor and then at Loki before her gaze fell upon the Mind Stone that still refused to heed her call.

"You wanted me to convince you that I no longer wish to be a prisoner," Loki cried out hastily, his words almost stumbling over themselves as he tried to speak them as quickly as he could even though he no longer knew what it was that he was trying to say. "And I no longer wish that. I am willing to wield the—"

"I erred!" Nemesis screamed, louder this time, louder and more desperate. "Enough of your senseless talk! There _is_ no future for you!"

Reality rebelled inside her prison and Loki held on to the latch of the box containing the Aether inside his mind with all his might but it was useless— _of course it was_ —because Nemesis was far stronger than him and did he really think, really believe, even for the fraction of a norndamned _second_ that he could bind the magic of the stones to his own when _she_ was reaching for them? Before he could think anything else, a lightning bolt of pain struck his brain and broke Reality's prison open. When the Aether diffused through the molecules of his skin, the pain became so intense that it drove Loki to his knees. Stark slid down beside him, reaching for his ungloved hand. Loki startled, jerking away. The cold returned to his body and his pale skin darkened into sapphire. He felt for his magic but, again, if by illusion or fact, his glamour had burned down to the last spark for the moment.

The mortals stood rooted to the spot as the Aether hovered in the air for a heartbeat and then squiggled towards Nemesis, who greedily sucked it in and imbibed the ancient force of infinite destruction with a satisfied slurp.

Thor let out a scream. "No, you need to stop!"

Eventually, Mind too broke free of the gauntlet and the Goddess ate her fifth child and gravity began to slowly dissolve and the matter on which they stood began to quake and light around them began to fade once more.

"Stop!" Thor bellowed again but Nemesis paid him no attention. " _Please_ , stop!"

"Please don't take the Soul Stone!" cried Barton from somewhere behind Loki. The archer had somehow crossed the room to the demolished Infinity Gauntlet and was holding it with two trembling hands, clutching it to his chest, as the fabric of the universe around them began to unravel. "It must give our families back!"

Nemesis smiled patronizingly. "This shall not be your concern, little man. You will not live to mourn them. Nothing will live anymore." She reached for the Soul, the mightiest of them all, who was still protesting, still clinging to the plane of existence she contained within herself, clinging to the souls she had devoured, trying to feast on them.

"But what will happen if you take away this universe?" Stark suddenly yelled in a voice trembling with awe as she shot to his feet. Despite the fear in his words, his face was one of grim determination that commanded admiration from Loki. "Won't you just create a new one?"

The lips of the Goddess parted and Stark recognized instantly that he had been given a chance, however slim it was, to speak. "I know I'm not from Asgard and I won't live as long as Thor and Loki will, and, yes, I have proven myself to be absolute trash when it comes to decision-making in recent years." He flicked a side-glance at Steve Rogers. "Most of us have, really."

"But we read your book as well," Rogers swiftly took over before Stark could lose himself in his ramblings. The captain looked intimidating enough as he was standing before the Goddess of all Creation, Loki had to admit, but he knew that Nemesis would neither be impressed by his posture nor by his voice that was no less shaky than the engineer's. "And we are wondering what good it would do if you extinguished our existence only to create a new universe."

"What makes you think that I will?" asked Nemesis. There was a slight edge of annoyance to her voice but, at last, the ground stopped shaking and the light stopped fading and maybe, just maybe, thought Loki, the mortals would not antagonize her as foolishly and recklessly as he had only moments ago. Maybe, just maybe, they were a little smarter than he had thought them to be until now.

"Because you will be alone again," Shuri answered and it began to dawn on Loki that the Avengers had discussed this in detail before Nemesis had released him and Thor back onto Midgard. "There will be nothing but darkness again and you will not be able to stand it."

"You dare to raise your voice against _me_ , mortal child?" Nemesis cried. _Yes, so much for them being smarter than you are_. "You dare to _insult_ me? I have spent eons watching the ruin those creatures I dreamed of have left in their wake and I will not repeat my mistake of birthing another universe!"

"Yes, you will," Bruce concurred with the young scientist. For some reason eluding Loki, the other man looked almost confident. "Because you are sentient. You will long for companionship again and you will shatter again and it will all begin anew."

"And that is what Ragnarok is all about, isn't it?" Pepper came forth. She did look terrified still, beyond terrified really, but her voice carried nonetheless and Loki's heart filled with awe at the humans' reluctance to give up even when faced with so powerful a foe. "Creation leads to destruction, which leads to creation, which leads to destruction."

 _A never-ending cycle_.

 _Creation and destruction, one and the same_.

"She speaks true," Loki gasped and then he too rose to his feet again before he bowed to the Goddess for good measure. "Forgive my earlier accusation, Nemesis," he continued. "Those words were spoken too rashly and it turns out I did not finish my thought."

"Finish it now," the Goddess commanded in a voice so cold and menacing that it instantly reminded Loki of the frozen surface of a lake cracking under a heavy leather boot.

"It was neither us who tainted your children nor was it your children who tainted us," the God of Drama replied, crafting his words carefully. "They tainted each other. You birthed the stones and they contained within themselves traces of your thoughts. Your thoughts were pure at first, as are all of our thoughts when we are born, but purity inevitably invites pollution. The lure of the stones' power first darkened the light in the hearts of beings and caused them to turn on your creation but, with them turning on your creation, your creation turned on you." He paused. "This is how everything exists, always and only against its opposite. It was inevitable, from the moment you shattered your existence."

The gaze of Nemesis traveled across the room, curiously gazing upon the peculiar crowd gathered before her as she tried to take this in.

Thor flicked a side-glance at Loki and gave a hardly perceptible nod. _So far, so good_.

"Which is why you will create new sentient beings that will be exactly the same," Shuri took over, her voice shaky but her stare as determined as Stark's. Suddenly, the mortals around Loki straightened as if one cue, drawing themselves to their full height as they faced the Goddess, their fear seemingly having vanished.

"Beings guided by emotions and desires," said Nebula, her voice hoarse with disuse.

"Emotions taking away their ability to make rational decisions," said Barton, the demolished Infinity Gauntlet with the flickering Soul Stone still clutched to his chest.

"People drawn to power because they feel powerless," said the Widow, a glint of pain in her eyes.

"And abusing power as a consequence," said Pepper.

"Beings craving knowledge," said Valkyrie.

"And ending up being burdened by it," said Stark.

"People drawn to doing the right thing," said Rogers.

"And ending up doing the wrong thing instead," said Bruce.

"Beings drawn to the illusion of control," said Wong.

"And disrupting the order of things in order to obtain it," concluded Loki, suddenly overwhelmed by the realization that despite the worlds that seemingly separated him from the humans standing beside him, they had faced the exact same hardships throughout their lives as he had. _The desire to be strong_ , _to please_ , _to be loved_ , _to feel powerful_ , _to understand one's purpose in the fabric of life_ , _to control one's fate_ … Their stamina, longevity and unfathomable powers aside, Loki realized, Asgardians or Giants were no different from the mortals and the thought instilled peace amongst the chaos of his frantic mind.

Nemesis still gazed at them, the wheels of her own ancient mind turning behind her thoughtful expression.

"You see?" sighed Rocket. "If you get rid of us, we'll only be replaced by another bunch of people who'll fuck up just as bad, maybe even worse."

Loki inwardly cursed at the raccoon's nonchalance but before he or even Nemesis had a chance to speak, Thor cleared his throat. "We are all guilty of these things," said the Thundergod. "These and other, even worse things, I am sure. We were thrown into this world, we tried to live and we messed up because we did not know any better. Just as you did not know any better when you made us."

A flicker of curiosity lit up the Goddess's black eyes.

"I still don't know what my father's intentions were," Thor continued. "Why he let us walk into a trap like that. Maybe he thought Ragnarok needed to happen but he did not want to be the one to cause it and so he messed up our lives so that we would do it for him. It no longer matters. What matters is that, now, I know the truth. I know how dangerous these stones are and how important their safe-keeping is and I will not let anything like this happen ever again. If you restore the Odinforce and give me a new Asgard to rule, I will keep it and the stones safe."

"What makes you so sure of that all of a sudden, Thunderer?" asked Nemesis.

Loki swallowed with anticipation, his heart skipping a beat or two.

"Because those who ruled before me ruled alone and they all failed in their own way. I will not fail," Thor said eventually, with a glance at Loki, "because I am not going to rule alone." He sniffed and Loki's lips parted in surprise. " _Both of you were born to be kings_. That is what he said and maybe that is what he meant after all. Maybe that is what we were meant to figure out all this time. Maybe that is why he brought you to Asgard, so that we can become this thing." Thor made a peculiar movement with his fingers, as if he were kneading the air into an invisible ball.

"What thing?" asked Loki.

"Ying and Yang, probably," Stark offered.

"Yes, that." Thor released a trembling breath. He took a step towards Loki and squeezed his shoulder before he faced Nemesis again. "There are things that I can do that my brother cannot and there are things Loki can do that I cannot but together we can achieve them," Thor continued, echoing Frigga's words. "Together, we can bring balance. Order and chaos, one and the same, one depending on the other. Apart from that, it is no longer wise to have one person whose powers are unchallenged and whose wisdom is unquestioned sitting on the throne, which is why we will rule Asgard together." He paused before he turned his head and smiled at Loki through tears of hope and happiness. "As equals."

Loki felt a stab of pain inside his stomach that was not pain or maybe it was a good kind of pain, if such a thing existed at all, but he did not think so, which was why he suspected the stab to be gratitude or the sense of belonging Thor had promised him after setting him free, yet with that sensation came a sliver of fear that he would soon feel trapped in a cage of responsibilities if he made a commitment to rule by his brother's side.

 _Do not let your mind surge ahead like this again, Loki_. _One step, one thought, one emotion, at a time_.

"Yes, we will," Loki concurred and the room fell silent. He could hear the air beginning to crackle with the electrical impulses of their collective anticipation and he bit the inside of his lip until he drew blood.

"I accept," Nemesis finally said with the barest hint of a smile on her lips. "Yet, I will not return to you what you lost. You have to reclaim it yourself, both Asgard and the souls devoured by the stone. And if you prove yourself capable of that, I will leave the universe in your hands. If not, all shall perish."

Having said this, the projection exploded in bright flashes of silver light that blinded Loki for a few seconds. When his eyesight returned, the black gem was safely locked in the obsidian padlock once more, the broken chain around the book of Nemesis was restored and the vibranium gauntlet Loki had been wearing was gone. Instead, all six Infinity Stones were sparkling on the restored Infinity Gauntlet on the table next to the book.

The mortals broke out into collective sighs of relief. Barton and the Widow fell into each other's arms. Bruce looped his arm around Shuri's shoulders and gently pressed her towards him in a fatherly gesture. The raccoon patted Nebula's leg, who tried to smile down at the animal but then turned away, her face pinched and sad.

Thor blew out a long breath. "We did it." He laughed a shaky laugh. "We really did it."

"Not yet," whispered the Widow but the God of Thunder did not answer.

"I need a drink," Valkyrie sighed.

"I think we all do," Bruce agreed.

"Damn." Stark made an odd sound that was half-grunt, half-sigh. "Can y'all believe that we faced Thanos, Hela _and_ Nemesis in just two days and all we lost is an arm and a hand?"

"You are the Avengers." Loki grinned. "Is that not your daily bread?"

"Not like this, no," Rogers objected. "And this wasn't us. The credit for this belongs to you." He looked from Thor to Loki. "Well, to you, most of all."

" _You_ helped us with Nemesis," Loki replied, his eyes traveling from Rogers to Stark to Shuri to Pepper. "You truly helped us and I have to admit that I underestimated your intellectual capacities. You have my apologies and my thanks, and I swear to you that they are both sincere."

"Shit," came from Stark.

"What?" asked Thor.

"I just remembered that the wizard saw all of this coming," Stark mumbled.

"Who?" asked Loki, with a side-glance at Wong.

"No, Strange," the engineer elaborated, his hazel eyes locking with Loki's. "He went through fourteen million possible futures and said there was only one in which we were gonna win. Assuming that _this_ is it, he knew that all of this was gonna happen. Nemesis calling for you guys, Thor making the bargain, Hela releasing you so that you could lead us to the stones and to Thanos and, ultimately, to Nemesis and to this." He glanced down at the restored Infinity Gauntlet, its golden surface gleaming under the ceiling lights. "Why?"

Loki's lips opened but he had no definite answer to that. He looked at Thor and saw a sheepish, lopsided grin appearing on his brother's lips. "That means that none of this is even truly my fault though, right?" He flicked a side-glance at Loki. "It seems that we have nothing to reproach ourselves for, brother."

"How convenient," Loki replied with a grin.

Valkyrie rolled her eyes and simultaneously shook her head.

"Okay, so now there's only one question left, right?" Rocket clapped his paws, jerking his head in the direction of the gauntlet.

"Who of you is going to snap?" asked Barton.

* * *

 _Notes :_

 _~ Again, the whole cancer-of-creation thing is taken from Thor: Heaven & Earth._  
 _~ "To mow down entire civilizations like wheat in a field" is what the Collector says when he talks about for what purposes the Power Stone has been used in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie._  
 _~ The line "proven myself to be absolute trash when it comes to decision-making" is taken from the Netflix series The Stranger, where Mike says this to Daisy._  
 _~ The whole idea of order being unable to exist without chaos and that creation and destruction are essentially the same (that you basically have to destroy in order to create) was inspired by Joanne M. Harris's Gospel of Loki. I should write that woman a thank-you note for inspiring so much of this story._  
 _~ The cage of responsibilities that Loki fears is taken from Daniel Kibblesmith's fifth Loki issue._  
 _~ The idea of Nemesis eating the stones and slurping up the Aether like that was probably also subconsciously influenced by Stephen King's Doctor Sleep, in which the members of the True Knot eat, or rather inhale, the Shining, i.e. the supernatural powers, of people to stay alive and young (spoilert alert? whoopsie)._  
 _~ And just so you know, writing Thor telling Nemesis that he and Loki would rule as equals had me in tears. More than once. Now, who is gonna snap …?!_


	50. Proof of their capability

#50

The brothers looked at each other and for the briefest of moments, Loki could tell that Thor remained convinced that his younger brother should do it because his mind was more potent while Loki remained convinced that his older brother should do it because his body was more resilient. Yet, considering the fact that they had convinced Nemesis not to annihilate the universe with the promise that they would rule together, Loki felt a nagging suspicion that the proof of their capability to reclaim all that was lost, which the Goddess had demanded, should be delivered together as well.

Even though it was hard to tell really, what the Goddess had truly wanted from them.

 _Only Yggdrasil itself knows_ , Reality had replied when he had questioned the stone about Nemesis's motives and the more thought Loki gave to this, the less sure he was of what exactly had transpired and why it had transpired. How had they convinced Nemesis in the first place? Why had the Goddess let them and the mortals speak, limiting herself to the role of an interlocutor in their midst when she could have easily glanced into their thoughts? Why had she waited for them to translate their thoughts into words under pressure instead of gazing into their souls the way she had in the void and making sure _they_ were truly convinced?

Had she enjoyed watching them, testing them? Had she hoped they would arrive at the idea of ruling together all this time? Had Odin?

 _Well, as you have said earlier_ , his inner voice reminded him. _Gods move in mysterious ways_. Unfortunately, that was true and would remain true for all the time that the universe had left.

"So?" demanded the Widow, her forehead pinched together into an apprehensive frown. Loki felt pity stir up in him when it dawned on him that her mortal brain—all of their mortal brains really—had not yet processed any of the unthinkable things they had been forced to witness during the past months. They had brushed Nemesis aside as quickly as she had disappeared back into the gem, focusing immediately on the next task, but once their ordeal was finally over, they would be haunted by images of Niflheim, Nemesis, Thanos, the Soul World, the Chitauri and the Infinity Stones in grueling nightmares and they would wake up drenched in sweat for many months or even years to come.

Thor had opened his lips to speak but no sound was leaving his mouth.

"They are suffering in there," Barton reminded them quietly but urgently. "With every passing minute."

"Please," said Shuri.

"We should do it together," Thor announced before he corrected himself, the strength and confidence of his younger self returning to his voice. "We _will_ do it together." He glanced at Loki for support. "Right?"

"Yes," Loki said without hesitation, his mother's words replaying in his ears. _There is so much you can do_. _There is so much that your brother can do, so much that you can do_ _ **together**_ _, and yet you both still struggle to accept who you can be_.

"How?" asked Rogers.

Loki drew in a sharp breath. "Well, I have an idea," he said and, despite the encouragement he had received from them earlier, he remained conscious of the feelings that an announcement such as this coming from the God of Lies, Mischief, Stories, Drama and Chaos had instilled in people in the past and would probably instill in them in the foreseeable future. He glanced at Thor. "It is quite outlandish, but it might work."

"It _might_?" asked Valkyrie.

" _Outlandish_?" Stark echoed with an expression of incredulity mixed with traces of awe etched into his face. "Outlandish, really? What could possibly be more outlandish than soaking up the whole power of an Infinity Stone and channeling it through your own mind? What could possibly be more outlandish than us traveling to Hell or speaking to the Goddess of Creation or you just appearing out of thin air because you reduced your own body to a subatomic state or you killing and reviving yourself with a spell or releasing your dead Mom's spirit from the afterlife to give you a pep talk?"

Loki bit back a giggle. "Well, if you put it that way."

"Just do whatever you have to do," said Rogers. "Please. We trust you."

 _Oh, oh_. _Are you certain that this is your verdict, Captain_?

Loki allowed a half-smile to creep onto his lips before he gave a nod and reached for his magic, testing its strength and finding that it was slowly returning. "Thank you," he said. "I need sustenance and a little preparation time but I will be with you again shortly."

"Please, hurry," Barton begged him and for reasons Loki could not yet fathom, his hostility had evaporated entirely. _The book of Nemesis must have been quite a revealing read indeed_.

"The Infinity Gauntlet is restored," he said with as much compassion as he could muster for a man who had showed him nothing but contempt. "I do not think your loved ones are still suffering but you have my word that I will hurry."

"Wait, where are you going?" asked Thor. "What do I do?"

Loki flashed his brother a grin. "Perhaps it would be a great idea to meditate."

Stark guffawed as the Thundergod's eyebrows hiked up his forehead. "Are you serious?"

"Just rest," said Loki. "You will need every ounce of your mental and physical strength for this." He glanced at Shuri. "I suppose I will find food in the kitchen of the palace?"

The young scientist gave a nod and Loki directed his attention at Valkyrie. "Make sure that he rests."

* * *

He had promised them to hurry and, yet, almost three hours had passed when Loki sauntered back into Shuri's laboratory after he had reinvigorated his glamour with the help of a short nap, a quick refreshment of the spell he needed for what lay ahead and a meal of fruits and meats and fish prepared by the cooks of the palace. The crowd gathered waiting for him in eager anticipation, he immediately noticed, had grown and his body involuntarily tensed in response to the sight.

"Hey, man," said the Kronan, raising his rocky hand by way of a greeting. "How are you doing?" His unsightly insectoid companion Miek was by his side and so was a tall, slender but wiry black man with closely cropped hair, whom Loki suspected to be the friend coordinating one of the emergency aid programs that Stark had mentioned during their brief stay in New York.

"Fine," Loki pressed out, his eyes sweeping the room. The warrior woman who had raised her spear against him earlier was there again as well and her gaze was as hard as the rocks that the Kronan's body was made of.

"This is Colonel Rhodes," Stark said with a jerk of his head in the direction of his friend. "Loki, Rhodey. Rhodey, Loki. Wong brought them here to witness the big show-down."

Rhodey nodded by ways of a greeting. Loki gave a stiff nod in response to the introduction but his attention was focused on the one person who was not there. "Where is my brother?"

"Resting as requested," said Rogers but the moment he said this, Valkyrie and Thor came back into the laboratory as well and Loki noted to his satisfaction that his brother looked as restored and confident as he had before this odyssey had started. _Probably because he has slept for the first time since he brought me back_ , Loki guessed, shuddering at the thought.

Thor's face lit up even further when he spotted Korg and Miek and he crossed the room towards them in three giant strides, giving them huge, bear-like Thundergod hugs. "We missed you too, man," gasped the Kronan, patting Thor's back.

Loki patiently waited through their salutations and did his best to stop his eyes from rolling into the back of his head, certain that one of the others would interrupt them soon enough.

The raccoon did not disappoint. "Don't you guys think you could wait with the hugging until everyone is back?"

"Of course, yes." Thor harrumphed. He smiled at Rocket and then his eyes traveled the length of the room, landed on the Infinity Gauntlet for a second and then fixed on Loki. "So, what's our plan, brother?"

"Our plan is that I will be using my powers of memory manipulation on the stones," Loki replied with a cautious glance at the wizard, who immediately asked him how. "I shall not bore you with the specifics, Mr. Wong. Suffice is to say that I have mastered the skill of memory manifestation and memory erasure and that I am quite confident that I will succeed."

 _Well, mastered the skill is maybe a bit of an overstatement_ …

 _Shush_.

"Okay and where do I come in?" asked Thor.

"We are going to use your body," Loki said with a grin, thriving on the shock and the flurry registering on all of the human faces. "You are going to put on the Infinity Gauntlet and I am going to fuse my mind with your body so that you can snap at the exact same moment the spell is in place."

To Loki's genuine surprise, Thor did not look distraught in the least. "What do I have to do?"

"You just have to open your mind to me and I do as I say," Loki told him. "Nothing more."

"Wait," said the Widow. "Isn't there a less complicated way to do it? That seems—"

"Dangerous? Bold? Pretentious?" Wong provided. "I mean … no offense."

Loki forced a smile onto his lips. "I could put on that glove and do it by myself but, if you will allow me this, I have no desire for the Infinity Stone magic to scorch my flesh down to the bone. My brother's body will be able to handle the repercussion of their magic, which is why he will have to do the physical snapping while I will do the mental snapping."

"Savvy?" asked Stark but no one paid attention to him.

"You are sure that my body can handle it though, right?" Thor asked. "That's not just another wild guess?"

The forced smile on Loki's lips turned sincere. "I am sure."

Thor nodded, walked over to the gauntlet, forced a deep breath down his lungs and then slipped his right hand into the cool Uru of the glove with a confident smile. "Then I am ready."

"One more thing," said Shuri. "I would ask you to take that outside if you don't mind."

"Terrific idea," Stark concurred and Loki supposed that he was thinking of the blast the Aether had released inside his own workplace.

Once outside, Loki drew a sharp breath and placed his hand on Thor's forehead under the watchful eyes of the Avengers, the Wakandan palace guard and a crowd of bystanders who was slowly gathering around them. He had performed a spell such as this before, tapping into another person's mind, visualizing the single threads in the tapestry of their thoughts and emotions, and pulling them out to erase a memory, but not like that. Not in another person's body and not on such a monumental scale.

"Hey, calm down," mumbled Thor, which rose a few agitated murmurs from the mortals. "I can basically feel that your magic is shaking."

 _Shut up_ , Loki hissed. _I am calm_.

Thor blew out a breath. "If you say so."

 _Now, tap into the glamour of the stones_. _Feel their magic_.

Thor struggled at first and Loki had to command his brother several times to open his mind before the combined memories of the stones finally appeared in front of his inner eye in the form of a vast, colorful tapestry.

"Wow," mumbled Thor.

 _Wow indeed_ , thought Loki and then busied himself with the task of isolating every thread influenced by the Titan's desires. He forced himself to think of Thanos and everything that the Mad Titan had involuntarily revealed to him through the Mind Stone and its manipulations one last time; everything that he had told the Avengers in Stark's compound in New York what felt like eons ago. _He did not think of his deed in terms of annihilation; he thought of it in terms of salvation … He did not lie to you, not on purpose anyway_. _He deceived himself_. _He truly_ _believed that he was going to perform a miracle to liberate the universe from torment … He always thought of suffering in terms of empowerment and believes pain to be the fabric of all life, so he decimated half the universe to empower the half that remained_. _He probably still believes that he has brought a new universe into being and he did it with loss, torment and suffering_. _A new universe, crippled by pain, which will arise from the ashes like the proverbial Phoenix, its inhabitants hardened by their collective trauma_. _A new universe that he created as a God_.

As Loki focused on these thoughts, single threads started to glow on the fabric in front of his inner eye in the same purple as the Titan's skin; single ones at first but more and more of them lighting up until they morphed into a crooked shape of Yr.

The rune of death.

 _These threads need to be pulled from the tapestry of your memory_ , Loki commanded, compelling the Infinity Stones to expunge their magic of every thought the Titan had ever inflicted upon them. _All the beings who lost their lives due to his delusions must return_ , he told them. _You must reweave the fabric of your reality_. _Thanos no longer exists and neither does his wish to subjugate the universe_. _Things must return to how they were before he got hold of you_. _That is the only way you will survive_.

The threads glowed treacherously and Loki felt his mental strength wavering but he pressed on nonetheless, commanding them to pull them out by the sheer power of visualizing the act.

Next, he reminded the stones of Asgard as they crackled madly on Thor's wrist, reminding them of the Realm Eternal perching atop the World Ash with its golden pillars and its library and its weapon's vault and the Odinforce pulsating through the universe from the Hall of Yggdrasil. The corresponding threads in the tapestry became visible as well, pulsating in a bright gold, morphing into the rune of Algiz.

The rune of life, of beginning, of protection.

 _This you must give back_ , Loki said, his mind's eye landing on two particular bright threads that could not be rewoven. _I command you to weave the tapestry of the universe anew_. The stones protested, indignant at his insistence and clearly terrified by another monumental spell that would drain their powers.

 _You must_ , Loki urged them. _Or else, you will not survive and all will perish_.

Slowly, their resistance began to crumble as Loki held on to the visualization of the tapestry, to the threads glowing in bright shades of purple and gold and to a thousand invisible hands ready to pull at them, until he felt that everything was in place.

"Should I …?" asked Thor.

 _Yes_ , Loki whispered and, then, his brother snapped his fingers and the Infinity Stones obliged and the threads were pulled and the connection between them broke. Loki's mind was jolted out of Thor's body and he felt the jolt in every bone of his body. And then he felt something else, a surge of magic so powerful that all the glamour he had wielded in his life before paled in comparison.

 _Is that … the Odinforce_?

Loki staggered and glanced at Thor, at his brother's naked arm, at his armor that had burned away, and at the Infinity Gauntlet that was still crackling with the Infinity Stone magic that had scorched the Thundergod's skin with a thousand rainbow-colored miniature lightning blasts, but the images were not registering. Not really.

Thor was biting his lips, his face twisted into a grimace of pain. "C-can I t-take it off n-now?" he asked through clenched teeth.

"Did it work?" asked Barton, his voice a cautious whisper of hope.

"I am fairly certain that it did," Loki replied but, with his mind once more fried with exhaustion, he could not be sure. He felt a wave of dizziness and closed his eyes against it. Once more, Stark was beside him in an instant, supporting his elbow.

"Take it off," said Rogers.

Thor yanked off the glove, heaved a booming groan of pain and threw it away, sending it clattering onto the ground. It was unsinged, Loki saw when he opened his eyes again, its golden surface gleaming in the sunlight. Yet, no one seemed remotely interested in the Infinity Gauntlet, which is why Loki used the moment of the others' distraction to seal it away in a pocket dimension on an impulse he did not fully understand.

 _Just in case_ , he told himself. _Just in case_.

"Are you alright?" Valkyrie asked Thor, panic in her voice. She glanced at Loki, who shrugged frantically.

"I d-don't know," Thor bellowed through clenched teeth. Valkyrie made a step towards him but he slapped her away, his knees buckling. "Ask me ag-gain when the pain subs-sided and I can …" He interrupted himself with another groan. "I c-can … breathe."

Loki's heart shattered inside his chest when he realized that he had underestimated the thickness of his brother's skin and he lunged towards him, his hand rubbing over Thor's back. "I am sorry," he whispered. "I thought … I _really_ was sure."

Thor shook his head, grunting.

The Avengers stood frozen in what might have been dread or guilt.

"Son of a bitch!" Thor cried out and Loki startled. "Not you," the Thundergod corrected himself, his breathing finally slowing down. "I meant …"

"Well, we cannot be sure of that though, can we?" Loki jested and, after a moment of confusion, Thor's hoarse laugh boomed across the yard. Loki joined in, tears stinging into his eyes.

"I'm okay," Thor whispered and before Loki knew what he was doing, he had swept his brother into a hug after recoiling from Thor's every display of affection in front of the mortals. Thor's body relaxed inside the embrace and he rested his chin on Loki's shoulders for a moment before he looped his arms around his brother's back and squeezed him tight. "I am so glad to have you back," the God of Thunder sobbed and, out of nowhere, Loki was hit with the realization that they were strong in different ways and that he was a lot stronger than Thor in some of those.

 _Not that it matters_.

 _No, not anymore_.

"Guys," whispered Agent Romanoff. The sons of Odin broke out of their hug and Loki followed the gaze of the Avengers to a bench under a tree at the far end of the yard where the air began to swirl, softly at first but swiftly turning into a small gust of wind that released a plume of ash, which then materialized into the bodies of two Wakandan soldiers.

* * *

 _Notes :_

 _~ Okay, so you finally got a real hug! See? I am not THAT cruel. Or should I say, not only cruel?_  
 _~ As for the rest, I know that this is pretty damn dramatic but I always wanted them to do it that way, from the very beginning, and it's Loki and it's magic and let's make it as dramatic as possible because why the Hel not? I also always wondered how magic wielders convince the stones to just alter the fabric of reality on such a grand scale and I always imagined Thanos to have done a similar thing inside his head when he snapped his fingers. So, basically, what I'm saying is, there needed to have been some kind of spell uttered silently in the heads of all Infinity Stone wielders, especially since they are talking in my version of the story, which is why I chose this._  
 _~ The idea of pulling the threads out was inspired by Liza Grimm's Heroes of Midgard._  
 _~ I debated with myself for two hours if I should let Rhodey and the others join the team since they do not add anything to the plot at this point (and I am fully aware of that) but I just thought Tony would have called him for that at least. Or maybe I'm wrong but that is just one paragraph, so I don't care._  
 _~ And I am sorry, Ravenleaf, but Strange has to wait until the "big reunion" in the next chapter. My apologies. Yeah, maybe I am a little cruel._


	51. Lords of Asgard

#52

"We did it," mumbled Thor, as the crowd around them cried out in disbelief and delight, assailing the returnees with questions. "We really fucking did it."

"Yes, we did," said Loki, his gaze on the charred skin of his brother's arm while Rogers and Shuri glanced at each other and then fled the court without words; Bruce, Romanoff, Barton, Rocket and the warrior woman charging after them. "Now, let me try to heal you."

"No." Thor shook his head as the mortals set themselves in motion. "They're going to check the battlefield where most of our friends … you know," Thor explained before he noticed the look of astonishment on Loki's face. "It's alright, brother. My body will heal itself just fine and if it doesn't, well, I want to remember this." He glanced down at his arm and then looked up again, flashing him a sheepish God of Thunder smile. "Besides, it lends a distinctive note to my appearance, don't you think?"

"It surely does," Loki mumbled, his eyes rolling into his head of their own accord, before he focused his gaze on Stark, who seemed oddly hesitant in the face of the general euphoria submerging the Royal Court.

"Are they j-just going to reappear where they vanished?" the engineer asked. "Because in that case … in that case …"

"They will find a way here," Nebula assured him and Loki was astonished how well she was handling herself considering that she was the only one among them whose loved one would not return to her. He briefly contemplated going over to the cyborg to give her solace but, at the same time, Loki knew that his words would probably not make a difference. There was one person who would not return to him and Thor either and no amount of comforting words would ever lessen the pain that this knowledge inflicted upon his soul. _Or maybe at some point but certainly not in the immediate future_. Before he could dwell on this any further, however, a sparkle of orange registered on the periphery of his vision and he turned around to see a portal spinning into existence between Wong's palms.

It opened a gateway to a rocky, barren planet littered with mechanical and organic debris that Loki recognized as Titan from the memories of the Infinity Stones. While he was mulling over the realization that the humans had managed to take the fight to the birthplace of Thanos located in a distant solar system with their limited spacecraft technology, a truly peculiar group of individuals stumbled out of the portal and onto the Royal Court.

The first to emerge was a young human man—well, a boy really—dressed in a tight red and blue battle suit with a black spider imprinted on his chest. He was accompanied by an older man in a dark red leather jacket, an empath, a member of a warrior race Loki's name had forgotten and, lastly, the wizard bearing the ridiculous name of Doctor Strange.

 _Well, obviously spacecraft technology had nothing do with their voyage to Titan_ , Loki thought as he tried to process the sight of the creatures that had apparently fought in the first war against Thanos.

"Those are the Guardians of the Galaxy," Thor informed him as Stark stormed towards the human boy and swept him into his arms with a sob, pressing him tight to his chest. "Anyway. Come with me," said Thor but Loki's attention was glued to the boy, who was clearly overwhelmed by the gesture, crying out Stark's name in disbelief before he responded to the embrace and relaxed against the older man's chest. Pepper, who stood nearby, was crying toneless tears of relief.

"Welcome back," Wong said to Doctor Strange, vigorously shaking his hand as the man wearing the leather jacket walked straight up to Nebula and assailed her with questions about Gamora's whereabouts. The empath and the warrior were merely standing there, glancing at each other like two feeble-minded children, and the cyborg's voice hitched when she told the man that her sister would not return from the Soul World.

Loki felt the urge to disintegrate into thin air when the mortals held each other in their arms, weeping tears of joy. He felt entirely out of place, not in the same way he had all his life, but more in a very realistic sort of way in which he clearly understood that the scenery unfolding before him had nothing to do with him and that he was not meant to take part in this tearful and vulnerable reunion. He reached for his magic and toyed with the idea of simply teleporting away and letting Thor handle the situation until the wave of emotions rolling over the Royal Palace of Wakanda at this very moment had subsided.

Loki's eyes searched for his brother to tell him that he would return later but when he spotted Thor, he saw that the God of Thunder was engaged in conversation with Colonel Rhodes, Korg and Valkyrie. The sight of them stirred up the recollection of Stark telling him how the few surviving Asgardians had had been helping Rhodes providing some sort of emergency aid for the mortals. This recollection raised the question why they had not come along when Wong had opened a portal to them earlier, which, in turn, raised the next the question what the restoration of Asgard—if the stones had executed this command as well—would mean for their souls. Loki's heart sank when he realized that he would have to face up to the responsibility of ruling Asgard sooner than expected.

 _Gah_ , Loki sighed inwardly, his stomach clenching at the prospect of having to concern himself with the wellbeing of their people when all he craved was a decade-long slumber. He glanced at Stark again, who had let go of the mortal boy.

 _You know very well what keeps you here, and it has nothing to do with the responsibilities you agreed to take on_.

 _Alright, we are leaving this planet_. _**Now**_.

"Loki?"

 _Oh no_. _Not him as well_.

Loki turned around and forced a civil expression onto his face even though he was inwardly fuming at Doctor Strange for sending him spiraling facedown into a seemingly never-ending portal not that long ago. "Ah, the Sorcerer Supreme." He fabricated a sly smile. "I hope your voyage from the Soul World back to the lands of the living was not too inconvenient?"

The wizard had the good graces to feign a contrite expression as he extended his hand towards Loki. "I would like to thank you. For everything."

Loki narrowed his eyes at the hand.

"It pains me to say this," Strange said in this typically arrogant fashion of his, his hand still hovering in the air, "but you have served the universe well."

The effort it had taken the wizard to say these words was clearly showing on his face and, suddenly, Loki felt genuine amusement instead of resentment. _The Order of the Masters of the Mystic Arts is under our command now_. _This shall be fun_. He grinned and reached for the other man's hand, squeezing it with a lot more force than would have been necessary. Strange smiled a wry smile and then withdrew his hand, sucking on the edge of his lip.

 _Did I shake your hand too violently?_ _Oh dear, I am_ _ **inconsolable**_.

"Glad we got this over with," Stark suddenly barged in, his eyes focused on Strange. "You owe us an explanation as to why this is the one scenario that needed to happen."

"Whoa, Mr. Stark, i-is that …?" asked the boy, his voice trailing off when his eyes landed on Loki. He was pale with dark circles under his eyes and had an expression of slightly frightened disbelief stamped across his face but his voice was buzzing with youthful energy nonetheless.

 _Here we go_ , Loki thought, steeling himself for the number of people who only remembered him as the psychopath who had unleashed an alien army upon New York.

"Yes, but his villain days can be accounted for by some sort of magic-induced psychotic break," Stark explained. "He's sane now."

 _Sane, ha_! _Did you hear that_?!

"Oh, then it's nice to meet you, Mr. Loki," said the boy. "I'm Peter Parker."

 _Mr_. _Loki? Seriously,_ _ **when**_ _are we leaving?_ "Nice to meet you, too," Loki pressed out.

Stark had focused his attention back on the wizard. "So?"

"Because it is the only scenario in which Asgard was brought back." Strange slightly shook his head. "Couldn't you work that out for yourself?"

Stark's lips parted. "Why is that …"

"So important?" Strange finished for him. "Because the stones spiraled out of control as soon as the place harboring so much of their magic went up in flames. The balance of the universe needs Asgard and the Odinforce to exist," the wizard clarified when he saw Stark's puzzled expression. "You all saw what happened after it was destroyed, right? Yggdrasil cannot stand by itself, protruding into the universe unsheltered. Its energy must be cushioned, harnessed, channeled, and Asgard is the only realm that wields enough magic to do so."

Stark's gaze landed on Loki. "Didn't you say that it was this dwarf fella who ensured that the stones would destroy themselves as soon as Thanos snapped?"

Loki gave a shrug. "Another guess?" Well, this was not entirely true, for he had senses the traces of Nidavellirian magic in the gauntlet.

"The dwarf fella, whose name is Eitri by the way, had a suspicion that the Infinity Gauntlet would only be used after Asgard had already fallen," Strange elaborated. "He had a suspicion that a universe without Asgard cannot survive. And he was right. Everything that happened needed to happen so that Nemesis can tell you that."

Loki's jaw dropped.

"You never meant to bring Asgard back, did you?" Strange chuckled, feasting on Loki's speechlessness. " _You_ would have just reversed the Snap. The Goddess put that bug in your ear."

 _Damn it all_ , _that whelp is right_. "You saw of all that in the Time Stone?" asked Loki and he found himself incapable of keeping a trace of admiration out of his voice. "For fourteen million possible futures?"

"I did, yes." Strange flashed him another smug grin that set Loki's teeth on edge.

Stark's mouth worked. "But … when you died for us and risked your own life for this future, how could you be certain that we wouldn't mess it up?"

"I couldn't," Strange admitted. "But I knew that you were going to live and that you would be foolish and curious enough to touch the Soul Stone as soon as it was within your reach and that the vision you would see was going to spark an understanding for magic and a, well, let's call it an affection for King Loki here, which would ultimately lead you to try your best to prevent him from going all 2012 on you guys again." The wizard offered them a half-smirk that left no doubt about how much he was enjoying their discomfort.

Pepper heaved an abased sigh.

"Do not call me that, please," Loki stammered because he did not know what else to say to that on the quick and he was sure that his cheeks were turning crimson with embarrassment. He was also sure that Stark's cheeks were doing the very same thing and when he stole a glance at him, he saw that he was right even though the engineer made an effort to narrow his eyes in annoyance.

"Do not call you what?" asked Strange.

He drew a deep breath to collect himself. "King Loki."

"What else would you like to be called, then?" asked the wizard.

"His current title," Stark replied with a smirk that did only so much to cover his own embarrassment, "is God of Drama."

Doctor Strange rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that's, um … well, I guess it … suits you." He smiled at Loki in a way that clearly indicated how much, or how little, he thought of that and Loki smiled back at him in the same fashion. Strange cleared his throat. "Now, where are the Infinity Stones?"

"What? You didn't see that in your vision? That is unfortunate," Loki snickered. Before Strange could give a reply, two large ravens appeared in the sky from out of nowhere and soared downwards with unsettling speed, their feathers shining like gleaming black oil in the light of the setting sun. Loki felt a smile tugging at his lips and tears welling into his eyes for the millionth time after Thor had rescued him from Niflheim. He blinked them away.

Stark took a step backwards. "What the …"

"Are those Odin's ravens?" Pepper gasped.

"Wait, who's Odin?" asked Peter Parker.

"They are," said Loki as one of the birds flew towards him. He raised his arm and the raven sat down on it while the other one flapped his wings in Thor's direction. "Although I dare say they are _our_ ravens now. This is Múninn," Loki told them as he scratched the spot underneath the raven's beak, gazing into its huge black eyes with the tiny golden ring around the iris, "which is Old Norse for mind or memory."

Múninn cawed contentedly.

"Now, if you will excuse me?" He slightly bowed his head and then walked towards Thor.

* * *

A few hours later, Loki was standing on the edge of the vast field stretching out beyond the borders of the Wakandan Palace, looking up at the starry sky blanketing Midgard as he waited for his brother. He knew now that this had been the battleground upon which the mortals had faced and lost against Thanos, and he suppressed a shudder at the thought of the pure terror they must have felt when their companions had evaporated in front of their very eyes. Rocket had made that particularly clear when his emotional defenses had crumbled to pieces over the return of a talking tree.

Loki shook off the thought, Múninn cawing on his shoulder.

"He will be here soon," Loki mumbled, but Thor was taking his own sweet time to say his goodbyes. Loki understood that his brother had an emotional bond with some of them and that he needed to make sure that they would be fine before he attempted to leave for Asgard because that was who he was but still, he felt his impatience increase swiftly until it became a constant, nagging urge to leave Wakanda and the reassembled Avengers. Yet, since he did not dare to arrive in Asgard without Thor, he just started pacing.

Loki did not fully understand why he was so eager to leave, except for the fact that exhaustion was steadily creeping up on him and he yearned for solitude after having spent all this time in the mortals' company. Not because they had been openly hostile to him. The revived humans had been wary when they had laid eyes on him at first, quite naturally they had, especially that one man who called himself the Falcon, but after Thor's and Tony Stark's reassurances that "No, he is no longer an ally of Thanos" and "He actually snapped you back to life" and "He healed us all with a spell when we were as good as dead after we defeated Thanos" and "He fought by our side this whole time", they had hesitantly, confusedly thanked him. They probably still wanted an explanation for New York but they were far too distracted and traumatized and confused to even absorb the tale of what had happened after their deaths and "Were we really dead, I mean how could we be DEAD and just come back?"—that one from the mortal boy named Peter Parker—and … _By all the Realms_ , _these people are exhausting_.

Loki had felt awkward in their presence and it certainly did not help matters that he could not admit to himself that he had started caring about them, especially the raccoon and Nebula and, well, Stark of course. _Damn him_. _Just damn him_. Doctor Strange and the Scarlet Witch, who had been infused with the powers of the Mind Stone after he had orchestrated its theft from the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility and who had been eying him curiously for the length of their explanations, were certainly of interest as well and would prove valuable allies in fighting any future threats. But all of that could wait.

Everyone—even the arrogant wizard—had agreed that, at this point, everything could wait. The safekeeping of the Infinity Stones and the book of Nemesis, the future of the universe, the future of their collaboration; none of this warranted immediate discussion considering their collective exhaustion and post-battle bewilderment. Thor, Loki and Valkyrie were to ensure that Asgard had survived and that the souls of the remaining Asgardians—who had vanished from where they had last dwelled when the wizards had opened a portal to validate their whereabouts—were safe as well. They were to leave with the stones and the book and report to Midgard in a few days when everything had settled.

That was when Loki had grabbed his chance to leave with brief goodbyes to the Avengers, telling Thor he would wait for him and Valkyrie outside of the palace.

 _What in Yggdrasil's name is taking them so long?_

When he finally heard footsteps approaching, Loki's lips broke into a grin. "You really do have a hard time leaving, huh?"

"Not really," said a voice that was not Thor's and Loki swiftly turned around.

"I mean, I like it here," Stark continued, "but I really wanna be back in New York."

"I can understand why," Loki pressed out, reluctant to be alone with the other man under a blanket of stars with all the cultural Asgardian and Midgardian connotations attached to an environment like this. "How is your hand?"

"Fine," Stark replied. "I mean, not fine, but I'll be able to live with it."

Loki gave a nod and an awkward silence crept over them. _Oh, please, do us both a favor and just go away_.

"Your father really was an ass, huh?"" Stark began, his gaze searching for his.

" _Really_?" Loki glared at him. "This is your best attempt to start a conversation with me _after_ I already said my _goodbyes_?"

"No, I j-just," the engineer stammered but then found his voice. "I'm just wondering why he would tell Thor to destroy Asgard when he must have known that the universe needed it to exist. That's bullshit."

"It is not," Loki replied, forcing himself to exercise patience. "Did you not listen? Ragnarok was real enough, just not in the way we thought it would be. Asgard needed to be destroyed in order to be created anew. That is what the Norns prophesied. A cycle; destruction leading to creation; one meaningless without the other." He feigned a smile and then added, pointedly, "Ask your wife."

Stark blushed. "She's not my …"

Loki raised an eyebrow at him.

"But why not just _tell_ you?" Stark went on, choosing to ignore his remark. "Why didn't Odin just say, 'Listen up, boys, for the next generation of Allfathers, we're gonna shake things up a little. You're both gonna be kings. How about that?' That would've made things a lot less painful for all of us, don't you think?"

Loki snorted a laugh out of his nose before he could stop himself and Stark locked eyes with him, his entire face lit up by a boyish smile. "Possibly," Loki replied after a while. "But an insight is much more valuable when it comes from the _inside_ rather than being forced upon you from the outside."

Stark's eyebrows hiked up. "What are you? A fortune cookie?"

Loki laughed once more. "You are doing this on purpose, aren't you? You know perfectly well that I have no clue how fortune could possibly relate to cookies."

"Really?" Stark feigned innocence. "You have no idea that fortune cookies are an American invention marketed as a Chinese tradition just to make the wisdom inside them appear wiser?"

Loki drew a sharp breath and forced himself to retreat from the game they had been playing thus far. "Stark, what are you doing?"

The other man's shoulders sank. "I don't know."

Loki drilled his gaze into him and watched him sway under its intensity. "What is this?" Tony Stark asked eventually, his voice a guarded whisper.

"What is what?" Loki asked back, his face a long-perfected mask of innocence that forced Stark to stretch out his hand, pointing towards Loki and then back to himself. Múninn cawed on his shoulder.

"Nothing," Loki lied because he would be damned if he allowed that intractable, loud-mouthed mortal in front of him stir up any more sensations inside his chest than he already had. "I am fascinated by how your mind works as you are undoubtedly fascinated by how mine works but that is the extent of it, I am afraid."

Stark frowned at him with the eyes of a hurt puppy and Loki winced inwardly. Múninn cawed once more. " _No lies!_ "

"Whoa." Stark's eyes widened. "Those birds can … speak?"

"No, they can't," Loki pressed out, his hand snapping upwards to the raven's beak and squeezing it shut. Múninn protested with muffled cawing and Stark flashed him a challenging grin.

"I might also find you attractive," Loki conceded but his honesty and the immediate reaction in Stark's eyes shocked him so violently that he immediately backpedaled. "In that insignificant mortal way of yours."

Stark blew out a breath, his shoulders sagging in defeat. "You really aren't gonna let people in, are you?"

"Not yet, no," said Loki. "Maybe in five hundred years from now but I suppose you will be pretty much dead by then."

Stark smiled but there was a flicker of sadness or even regret in his eyes. "Are you gonna come back?"

Loki answered with a shrug. "Your world would not exactly be collapsing from excitement if I did, now, would it?" A smirk tugged at his lips when he saw Stark's smile break open into a grin. "But now that you have access to spaceships, I suppose you could visit us sometime. You know, to study the science behind Asgardian magic." Loki allowed the smile to show. "You are welcome anytime."

Stark gave a nod and extended his hand. "Deal, I suppose?"

Loki nodded back and clasped the engineer's hand but then Stark pulled him into an unexpected hug and they merely stood there, locked in an awkward embrace for a few seconds, Múninn cawing frantically on his shoulder. They stood there until Thor and Valkyrie finally rescued him by making their presence known with a synchronized cough that was no less awkward than the hug itself.

"Well, I suppose it is time to go," said Loki, feeling foolish as soon as the words had left his lips.

"It is," Thor confirmed with a far too serious expression on his face that made the entire situation so much worse. "Shall we try?"

Húninn cawed on the Thundergod's shoulder. " _Lords of Asgard return_!"

Loki gave a nod, a careful, hesitant nod, his heart accelerating with the accursed sentiment of hope.

"Heimdall?" Thor asked with the same amount of careful hesitation in his voice. "Are you there?"

For a few seconds, nothing happened but then a pillar of glittering rainbow light cascaded from the sky and tears welled into the Thundergod's eyes and the ravens took to the skies. Thor began to walk towards the Bifrost at once and Loki followed him but then his brother halted when he realized that Valkyrie was making no move to follow them. Thor turned his head and asked, "Are you not coming with us?"

She shook her head. "I meant to, I really did, but I really think it is probably for the best if I stayed on Earth for a while, you know, to give you guys some time to settle in and figure everything out."

Loki turned around as well, his gaze traveling from Valkyrie to Thor and back to her. He scrunched up his nose. "Are you seriously breaking up in front me just now?"

"Well, no," Valkyrie clarified. "He _already_ broke up with me."

"I did not," Thor protested. "Well, I did, sort of, but I did not mean to?" he tried, a sheepish smile playing upon his lips.

"Yes, you did," Valkyrie replied. "And that is alright with me. I'm gonna be around for a while, you know." A tiny smile ghosted her lips. "Just make sure to sort everything out and not burn Asgard to the ground again in the process."

"Alright," Thor stammered.

"Good luck, your majesties," Valkyrie said. "I suppose you will need it. Lots of it."

 _What an understatement_ , Loki thought as they turned away and walked towards the pillar of rainbow-colored light.

"Wait, what about those hideous ice pillars on my lawn in New York?" Stark shouted after them.

"They are a gift," Loki replied as he glanced back over his shoulder, winking at the other man. "You know, for science."

Stark laughed at this and Loki could not prevent a smile from creeping onto his lips.

"It seems we are both leaving someone behind here, uh?" Thor asked as soon as the others were out of earshot.

"I have no idea what you are talking about," Loki snapped as he fought back the hot rush of embarrassment that was threatening to color his ears and neck crimson once again. Thor merely grinned at him and Loki knew then that they once more were brothers returning home to the Golden City from a quest. They would finally go home. Together. Just the two of them. And suddenly he understood what Thor had done. "You did not really break up with her so that you can mend our fractured brotherhood, did you?" Loki asked, his face falling.

Thor gave a shrug. "What if I did?"

"If you did," said Loki, his heart filling with what might have been genuine happiness, "maybe you're not so bad after all, brother."

"Maybe not," Thor said on a laugh as they stepped into the light pillar of the Bifrost.

* * *

 ** _Sons of Odin_ starts playing**

* * *

 _Notes :_

 _~ Alriiigt, what to say? THIS ENDING, maybe? Although it is not truly the end, (there will be an epilogue sort of chapter giving you closure on Thor & Loki and how they're doing plus the book of Nemesis as a bonus) but that Ragnarok-inspired ending was SENDING me while I was writing it. I swear. I even lost my shit on Twitter over this._  
 _~ I was inspired to have Húginn and Múninn return when I watched the recently released alternate ending of Thor: The Dark World in which Thor rises to the throne and the ravens come flying to him, settling down on the same banister where he had been talking with Odin in the beginning of the movie, and I loved how that visualized his kingship. With two ravens and Thor and Loki ruling together, I thought that would be a nice touch to have one for each of them. And they can actually speak in Joanne M. Harris's novels and in American Gods, so that was something that I gladly embraced as well._  
 _~ For those of you who were wondering why I had Pepper as the character with a knowledge about Norse mythology, yep, I wanted Loki to throw that into Tony's face. I did not know how really, it came together in the last second as my mind, too, works in mysterious ways, but there you go._  
 _~ Spidey calling Loki "Mr. Loki" was a must of course._  
 _~ As was this Frostiron goodbye. It is my favorite ship and I thought about different ways how I could make them end up together but none of them were working, so I just had to let it go, at least for this story. And I don't think throwing himself into a relationship is something Loki needs at this point or is even capable of. And Val's and Thor's relationship was equally fragile as I imagined them to be drawn to each other simply because of the stress they lived through together and that it just happened so that they could provide each other comfort without really being in love, if that makes any sense. In any event, I'm not actually shipping them, lol._  
 _~ And Akira, I am sorry that you got no Scarlet Witch & Loki interaction but I never planned to focus on the Avengers as soon as they accomplished their goal. This is a story about Thor and Loki, and I really didn't wanna drag out the ending. Apart from that, I had no ideas (none, really) as to how they would interact after everything was sort of restored, so there you go. But at least Strange got his shot ;)_

 _~ Thank you all for taking that journey with me thus far 33_


	52. Home with my brother

**~ A few weeks later ~**

* * *

Thor startled awake in the middle of the night with his own heavy breath rumbling in his ears and the hot sweat of a nightmare slowly cooling on his face, neck and torso. He had been back in Hela's lair again, fighting her for the life of his brother, and she had glared at him with her icy blue stare before her face had transformed into that of Thanos and then that of Nemesis and then that of his father and back again, their voices screeching at him all at once in an ear-splintering cacophony— _You do not have what it takes to be a God! How many nights have_ _ **you**_ _spent in agony, wishing you had aimed for my head? You do not have what it takes to be a King of Asgard! You are_ _ **unworthy**_ _of the loved ones you have betrayed! Convince me, son of Odin, whom the Norns once prophesied to become the greatest of the Aesir! No, you are_ _ **unworthy**_ _! You barely have what it takes to be a man!—_ and he had seen himself, small and vulnerable and helpless and unable to move, unable to speak, unable to save Loki's or anyone else's life, and he had seen the mortals he had sworn to protect disintegrate into piles of ashes before his very eyes. _It really hurts to be in your company right now … You gave us all hope … You gave us something to believe in but then you betrayed us to that evil creature … Our lives mean_ _ **nothing**_ _to you … We should have left your sorry ass rotting in space … How could you do this to us … You are an_ _ **Avenger**_ _!_

The God of Thunder forced a few deep breaths into his lungs in an attempt to remind himself that he was back in his chambers on Asgard and that they had, against all odds, accomplished their mission. That he had made reparations for his mistakes. That his friends had forgiven him and had agreed not to speak of his reckless bargain to those who had returned. That Frigga still believed in him and in Loki, and that everything had meant to happen this way. And, most important of all, that the people yelling at him in his nightmares were either dead or far, far out of reach.

Yes, everything would be fine. Thor knew that. His subconscious merely needed time to process the rapid succession of events that had unfolded after Odin's death, that was all, and he was sure that his mind would heal itself given time.

No, Thor was not overly worried about his own psyche. He was worried about Loki's psyche.

Loki _seemed_ fine, yes. During the past weeks, they had busied themselves with forging new treaties with Jotunheim and reestablishing Asgard's old alliances with Nidavellir, Alfheim and Vanaheim. Apart from that, Loki had set his mind on the task to ensure the safety of the Infinity Stones after the Avengers had surprisingly and swiftly agreed—or maybe not so surprisingly considering the fact that their whole world had toppled down after the gems had turned up—that their safest bet to prevent intergalactic wars in the future was to keep the stones safely stowed away on the Realm Eternal.

His brother had spent entire days in the Hall of Yggdrasil from dusk until dawn, familiarizing himself with the sheer limitless powers of the Odinforce, his thoughts preoccupied with the task of creating a magical barrier for the stones that would be impervious. Loki was concentrating his energies on wielding sorcery in a way he had never done before, not even as a youth, keeping himself even more secluded, leaving the traditional feasts held after diplomatic gatherings early to brood over ancient spells in ancient books.

Thor knew that this was, in and of itself, _a good thing_. Loki's mind was not like his. After all the agony and terror he had suffered through, Loki's mind would probably never fully heal itself. Loki's mind was haunted and restless, and it would never stop racing, not even now, Thor knew that, and he knew that Loki needed to keep it occupied so that it would not turn against him once more. At the same time, however, he had to make sure that Loki did not keep himself _too_ distracted, because his little brother had a tendency to banish disturbing emotions to an inaccessible place at the bottom of his subconscious where they festered until their poisonous fumes wafted into his conscious thinking again.

Now that Thor too was more susceptible to the Odinforce and the magic pulsating through the veins of Asgard after their joint snap, he could sometimes sense mental disturbances in the signature of Loki's glamour as if their minds had miraculously connected and this night was such a time. He struggled out of bed and into a tunic, and went in search of his brother. He did not find him in his chambers, the library, or the Hall of Yggdrasil, and he was about to give up when he sensed wisps of his brother's signature wafting through the air. He followed the trail and felt a stab inside his chest when he realized that they had led him to the doors of the chambers of their mother, which they had left untouched in unspoken agreement.

Thor knocked softly and pushed the doors open when no response came. The chambers were unlit but he could see Loki's dark silhouette standing on the step to the balcony.

"Can't sleep?" Thor asked softly.

Loki turned around, wiping his nose with the back of his hand, and met his gaze with reddened eyes. "I was just … well, never mind," he whispered, his voice lapsing into silence.

"Having nightmares?" Thor asked as he cautiously stepped closer. "Me too."

Loki gave a nod, collecting himself with the greatest of efforts.

"You want to talk?" It was a ridiculous question—Loki would rather swallow a jar full of mud than to talk about his feelings—but Thor knew he needed to try.

Loki sucked in a sharp breath and surprised him. "Hela," he whispered, his breath coming heavy when he continued. "She showed me images of mother's corpse and even though I know that she is safe in Valhalla and that she has forgiven me, us, I just … can't seem to forget."

Thor stretched out his hand to comfort him but Loki jerked away, a listless smile appearing on his lips. "What a fine pair of kings we make," he jested but Thor knew that Loki's heart was not in it. "Tormented by nightmares of our failures."

"Yeah." The God of Thunder glanced around Frigga's chambers, his mind filling with memories of his mother brushing her hair by the dressing table and telling them stories when they were young, balancing them on her knees, cradling them to her chest and pressing them against her heart—a heart which was only beating for them. He gulped when he remembered the comforting warmth of her body reassuring them that nothing bad could ever happen as long as she lived to protect them. "Did you," Thor began and then harrumphed before he found the strength inside of him to voice the question he had yearned to ask his brother ever since they had returned. "Did you try to bring her back?"

"No," Loki whispered and the flicker of raw, unguarded pain in his eyes told Thor that not attempting to restore her soul along with those of Heimdall and the remaining Asgardians was the hardest and most selfless thing his little brother had ever done. He himself had been devastated by his mother's death, yes, but he had never needed Frigga as much as Loki had. He had never ventured into her chambers during a sleepless night to …

"She told me not to," Loki went on. "I mean, she did not precisely tell me not to but she said that it was our time now and I did not dare to …" His voice trailed off once more.

Thor gulped and a silence crept over them.

"It feels odd, doesn't it?" Loki asked into it. "Being back here without them? With no guidance and no supervision?"

"It sure does," said Thor and then resorted to humor. "We should take the chance to do some remodeling around here, you know. To make the whole place less … swanky."

The use of the adjective stirred something awake inside of him as a laugh escaped Loki's lips. "As long as we keep _some_ of the gold."

"Look, I want to apologize," Thor blurted out before his mind caught onto what his mouth was doing. The realization had been whirling through his head for a few days, developing in those unsettling pre-linguistic stages of awareness, but now it urged to be spoken.

Loki's eyebrows hiked up. "What for?" A sly grin tugged at the corners of his lips. "Well, it is not as if you do not have plenty of apologies to make, isn't it, so let me rephrase that: What for, _exactly_?"

"There's always been this grave imbalance of power between us," Thor began with a soft smile, then corrected himself. "I mean, not anymore, I hope, but earlier. When we were young. I never paid attention to this but I'm slowly beginning to understand how it must have been for you growing up. I was always sure you'd imagined father's slights but I was clearly at an advantage with my strength and my physique and probably also with being the firstborn son. I understand now that there wasn't much you could have done to prove yourself in my shadow and that this must have been frustrating. Well, maddening, really."

Loki's mouth gaped open in surprise.

"And while it isn't my fault that I was born this way, I shouldn't have displayed my prowess so ostentatiously, rubbing my strength in everyone's face, be they friend or foe. That was presumptuous, unnecessary and surely hurtful and want to I apologize for never even once considering how my overbearing arrogance made you feel."

Loki smiled melancholically. "I do not know what charm you are under but thank you."

"How about you?" Thor asked carefully and, just like that, Loki's smile died. "You should not apologize only because you expect an apology in return. Interpersonal interaction is not a transaction, you know."

"That is _not_ the reason I apologized," Thor protested. "But I still nurtured a tiny hope that after how far we have come lately that you too might want to offer me an apology or two."

Loki stared absentmindedly into the starry night that stretched out seemingly infinitely behind the balcony and he was silent for so long that Thor mentally prepared to leave. "How about answers instead?" Loki finally asked before he looked his brother straight in the eye with a smile that was almost shy. "You can ask me anything and I promise that I will not lie to you. Not tonight."

Thor raised an eyebrow. "Is there a catch?"

Loki shook his head. "No catch. Not tonight. I owe you this much."

"Let's start at the beginning then," said Thor as he stepped out onto the balcony and hesitantly sat on one of the two stone benches as if he expected Loki to tell him not to get too comfortable. When he did not, Thor leaned his back against the wall behind him. There was so much he wanted to ask his brother, so much he wanted to know about what Thanos and Hela had done to him and what he could have done to prevent any of it, but he forced himself to ask one question at a time.

"The beginning of what?" Loki was looking at him expectantly. "Time? The universe?"

"Unfortunate choice of words, really. What I meant was, well, let's start at the point where we stopped being brothers," Thor said softly and he could see, well, sense rather, that his words pained Loki as much as they pained him. "Why did you thwart my coronation and, if you did not intend to cause my banishment to Earth, _why_ did you convince me to march into Jotunheim?"

Loki's body tensed but he swiftly calmed himself with a deep breath. "You did neither deserve nor were you fit to be king back then. You just admitted yourself how arrogant you were. On top of that, you were reckless and war-hungry. The throne would have suited you ill and father should have known this. He should have waited a little longer to crown you king but since he was unwilling to do that, I intervened."

"Not to interrupt you," said Thor, "but Nemesis told me that he did that because he sensed that his reign was coming to an end and that this realization plunged him into insanity and despair."

"A plea for insanity," Loki remarked pointedly. "How utterly convenient."

Thor laughed and Loki's face softened with a smile. "Why he did it is not relevant to the question, though. What is important is that I, believe it or not, was at least partly thinking of what Asgard needed from its king and what it needed was nothing your younger self was capable of offering. So, yes, I traveled the secret pathways between the realms, devised a plot with Laufey and opened a portal during your coronation to let—"

"Just to make sure," Thor cut in once more, unable to stop himself, "you decided to avert my coronation because you were worried about me not being able to protect Asgard due to _my_ recklessness but still chose to sneak a group of Frost Gi—Jotuns into the Royal Palace to achieve your goal?"

"A bold, rather swashbuckling scheme, I give you that," Loki admitted with a sleek smile as he finally sat down on the bench opposite from Thor. "But it fulfilled its purpose. I knew how you would react to them breaching our borders and, let's be honest here, you did not disappoint. You marched into Jotunheim, blatantly ignoring father's laws because you were dying to prove yourself worthy of his esteem. But I told you already and I will tell you again, I had no idea he would banish you for your transgressions and I swear it was never my intention."

Thor frowned. "What _was_ your intention?"

"I wanted father to be sorely disappointed," replied Loki, his words quiet and meaningful. "I wanted him to doubt you and your greatness and to look at you, day after day, with the same kind of disappointment and contemptuousness with which he was looking at me."

Thor gulped and his voice did not carry when he asked, "Did you want him to make you king in my stead?"

"No," said Loki. "But I wanted him to consider the possibility that I might be a better successor to the throne than you."

"So, in terms of percentage, how much did you think of Asgard's welfare when you devised that plan?" Thor asked, resorting to the disarming powers of humor once more.

"Twenty," Loki replied without pause, a mischievous smile plucking at his lips. "Twenty-two maybe."

"I guess I do understand," Thor admitted softly. A thousand questions tumbled into his mind and his tongue itched to ask them all at once but, again, he forced himself to proceed slowly. It was such a rare occurrence that Loki opened up to him like this and he knew he had better not overwhelm him with questions about this emotionally disturbing period of his life. "What happened after he banished me? How did you find out about your lineage?"

"I realized on Jotunheim that something was amiss," Loki said. "I still remember Volstagg's cry cautioning us against the frostbites. _Don't let them touch you!_ When one of them approached me, I tried to duck away to avoid the impact, but he was faster and grabbed my arm." Loki lowered his gaze. "But there was no pain, no burn. There was a surge of energy instead and then nothing but coldness when my arm turned blue."

Thor felt his forehead twist with compassion.

"At first I thought it had to do with my magic," Loki continued in a trembling whisper. "I thought maybe a spell I had been experimenting with made me impervious to their powers or allowed me to duplicate them or …" His voice trailed off. "I was desperate to believe it. But after you were gone, I went into the vault to study the Casket of Ancient Winters and as soon as I touched it, the coldness spread through my entire body and I … Well, I suppose I realized that I truly was _different_."

"I'm sorry," Thor squeezed out.

"Father followed me into the vault," Loki went on and a sad smile shadowed his face. "He had almost depleted the Odinforce. He was weak and so … troubled. I had wanted him to be devastated by your truculence but seeing how it affected him, well, I did not quite feel the satisfaction I had hoped for. He was in so much pain. Your banishment caused him a lot of suffering. He did love you, brother." His breath hitched. "He loved you so much."

Thor felt tears stinging his eyes. "I know you don't want to hear this but I am still certain he loved you too. In his own abusive, completely messed-up way."

"I like to think now that he might have followed me into the vault to tell me that I was to be king in his stead for as long as he would remain in Odinsleep," Loki conceded, "but I never gave him the chance to explain himself." He snorted. "Not that it matters anymore. I confronted him about my true lineage and he told me the truth. Not all of it, I am sure, but he did tell me I was Laufey's son and during the ensuing altercation, he succumbed to his grief and fell into the Odinsleep."

"How utterly convenient," Thor repeated his brother's earlier words and they both laughed as if they were once again two little children giggling at their parents' peculiarities. "And, I suppose, with father being in Odinsleep and me being banished, the line of succession did fall to you?"

Loki gave a nod.

"And what then?" Thor asked carefully. "Why didn't you end my banishment? Why did you come to Midgard instead and told me that father had died? Why did you sent the Destroyer to kill me to make sure I wouldn't return?"

"My first command as king of Asgard could have hardly been to undo the Allfather's last," Loki said but it sounded far too practiced to be the truth he had promised him. "Mother said there must have been a purpose to your banishment and I was not going to risk father waking up to _me_ having foiled that purpose."

"I understand," said Thor and he did. He truly did. "Everything you have told me so far makes sense but killing me? The Destroyer _killed_ me, Loki. Why? There is nothing to justify such hostility. I know I have wronged you but I have not wronged you enough to cause this."

Loki remained silent for a while before he replied and when he did, a soft growl had crept into his voice. "As far as the Asgardians were concerned, I was the rightful successor to the throne. No law was broken, no scheme concocted. Father was lying helpless. You were in exile. Mother proclaimed me king. I had every right to rule Asgard and nobody should have doubted me."

Finally, Thor began to understand. "Who doubted it?"

"Who do you think?"

The answer came without thinking. "Sif."

"Sif and your precious friends, yes," Loki confirmed. "I was sitting on the throne as their king, telling them I could not possibly revoke Odin's commands, physically towering above them in fact, but still she looked down on me."

"So, something inside you just … snapped?" Thor whispered.

"I suppose so," Loki replied curtly and they lapsed into silence for a long while.

"I guess in a weird way it does make sense," Thor finally said and just like that, everything was clicking into place. "There's this side of you that appeared sometimes when you channeled all your anger, self-hatred and shame into hating me and every time that happened, your entire personality changed. Your eyes changed, your voice did too, and, suddenly, you weren't Loki anymore. I think it makes sense that it appeared for the first time when you had just found out that you weren't Odin's trueborn son, which must have made you believe that you did not _really_ have a right to sit on that throne even though nobody knew it and everyone should have thought you did. But Sif and the others confirmed your silent suspicions by making it clear they would rather commit treason to bring me back than to see you rule Asgard in my absence."

Loki had buried his face in his hands. "I can't believe you are so perceptive and yet so dumb at the same time."

Thor snorted a laugh. "Thank you. I guess?"

"This side, this voice, has been there long before this," Loki whispered, surprising them both with his honesty. "I have never spoken of this to anyone but this voice … It has been there for as long as I can remember but, suddenly, it just … took over."

"And before we had chance to work things out, you let go and fell into the void," Thor continued quietly and then gathered his strength for a few breaths to ask the next question. "What exactly did the voice tell you?"

Loki looked up and Thor saw the painful truth lurking in his brother's teary eyes. "That I must kill you," Loki whispered, "before you kill me."

Thor's heart leaped into his throat and he jolted upright. "Wh-what?"

"It told me that you would slay me for the monster I am," said Loki, his face a grimace of pain. "That I must, well, beat you to it."

Thor swallowed. "Loki, I wouldn't …" His voice broke. "I would never have—"

"I know," Loki breathed out, his lips breaking into a weak smile. "I know that now."

Thor nodded and waited for his heart to calm down. "Is that voice still there?" he asked after a few moments, yearning for the answer and dreading it all the same.

"It is," Loki replied. He rose and walked to the balcony rail. "It will always be. But I think I am slowly learning to live with it."

Thor smiled up at him. "So, no more trying to kill me in the future?" he asked, half-seriously, half-jokingly.

Loki smiled back, the flicker of humor returning to his eyes. "Not for a while, no."

Thor stood up, raised his arm and pulled Loki into a side-hug, gazing out into the stars. "I can feel her watching us," he whispered.

"Yeah." Loki gave a nod. "She is proud of us."

"Will you be okay, brother?" Thor asked hesitantly when he remembered how Loki had told him that he had lost so many pieces of his mind here and there over the years that he could not be sure if there were enough pieces left to stay sane.

"Not immediately, no," whispered Loki. "Maybe not ever." He lifted his gaze and looked at him. "But I cannot lose hope that I will be." He paused and the shadow of a smile ghosted his lips when he saw the worry flashing in the Thundergod's eyes. "Hey, at least, I am home. Home with my brother."

Thor squeezed his shoulders once more and they stood there for a good long while, enshrouded in the comforting silence of the night.

* * *

 **~ The End ~**

* * *

 _Notes :_

 _Alriiiiight, *deep breath* this is the end. I clearly remember when I said I wanted this finished before Endgame came out. Lmao, yeah. Almost a year later, it is, however, finally finished and I'd like to say a few words._

 _1) After Thor figured out everything that had happened with Thanos and the Mind Stone to turn Loki against him and himself and basically everything and everyone, I always wanted a scene in this fic where they would talk about what had happened **before** that. Parts of this conversation have been sitting in my drafts folder since last summer when the idea came to me during a bike ride and I wrote it down after I returned home. And yes, not everything is going to be smiles and sunshine in the future for them. They still have a lot of stuff to figure out and that is probably best illustrated by the fact that Thor tells Loki that he hopes there is no imbalance of power between them anymore while being simultaneously, subconsciously, convinced that he still needs to save him from himself somehow. But hey, they have each other back and that's all that matters … Right? I would say that I am sorry that this story ended on a slightly angsty note but I am not truly sorry because this is who they are and that is what their relationship is like and it has brought me so much joy and so much insights into myself to write it out in a story as huge as this._  
 _2) And this is waaaaay more important: Thanks to everyone who followed, favorited and reviewed this monstrosity of a fic, both on here and on Twitter. I appreciated all your love and your feedback and your constructive criticism. Special thanks and credit goes to Akira for inspiring me and developing ideas with me (Loki's conversation with Frigga being the one scenario that comes to my mind immediately but there were so much more and I am truly thankful for all of them) and to Ravenleaf for telling me how much my writing means to her and how it touches people's souls. Not to be dramatic or anything but I don't think that I would have finished this fic without the encouragement I received from both of you and I am grateful for that. Truly grateful._  
 _3) See you all soon on another story, maybe. And if you are reading this after I have marked this story as being complete, I would still appreciate a review, even if it is just one sentence that tells me whether or not you liked it._  
 _4) As an epilogue, I have what was written in the "Book of Nemesis" as a bonus for you to enjoy._

 _I'm sending you all much love and wishing you good luck with all of your future writing projects xoxo_


	53. Epilogue

**_~ Epilogue ~_**

 _It was believed by the Aesir that all life was created through fire and ice. They believed fire, which they imagined to come from a merciless world they named Muspelheim, and ice, from the ruthless frozen wastelands of Nifleim, to be two opposing forces separated by a magical chasm the name of Ginnungagap, bounded to their side of Creation by the chasm's seemingly never-ending deepness. They too believed that the forces had become stronger and stronger and had eventually spilled into the abyss, where the fire had bit into the ice with a feisty hiss. The droplets of ice melted by the fire became water and the water, it was told created the first two beings of the new universe: The giant Ymir and the cow Auðhumla, who sustained itself by licking the salty ice blocks and then nourished Ymir with her milk. From her licking, the tales of the Aesir propose, emerged Búri, father of Bor, grandfather of Odin, who would become the mightiest and most powerful being in all the known worlds; and great-grandfather of Thor, the Thunderer. Just as Auðhumla spawned the grandfather of the Aesir, it was said, Ymir spawned the Frost Giants, that race of deviant, horrid beings that now dwell in the realm of Jotunheim, by sweating a male and a female from under his left arm, who, as one might expect, procreated blissfully._

 _It has, however, never been known where Buri's companion to father Bor had emerged from and it has, also, never been questioned by the Aesir at all. What they did believe, however, was that Odin Borson killed Ymir one day and then created Midgard, the realm most treasured by all the Aesir, from the giant's carcass. Is was told that Ymir's blood became the sea, his flesh the soil, his skull the sky, his bones the mountains and his hair the trees of that new, all too precious world. What the Aesir also believed was that Yggdrasil, the World Ash, grew from Ymir's body and that its trunk grew tall very swiftly, creating six other worlds besides Muspelheim, Niflheim and Midgard, which sprouted into existence from the Ash's wooden roots—Vanaheim, Alfheim, Swartalfheim, Nidavellir, Jotunheim and Asgard; the Realm Eternal. This the Aesir declared their residence because it perched atop of Yggdrasil—the World Tree, as it would be later known across the universe—like a beacon of hope that shone across the stars. The tree was, so went the tales, supplied with water by three magical springs that sustained it through unfathomable eons, even though the origins of those springs, too, remained unknown. What was not unknown was that the Norns of past, present and future, the goddesses of fate, rested in a cave by the spring that nourished the Asgardian root of Yggdrasil and that, from there, they have woven the threads of fate for gods, men, giants and all other creatures ever since the worlds came into existence. What was also not unknown was that Odin Borson, High King of Asgard, Allfather of Creation, once sought out the wisdom of the World Tree and hung himself from it, refraining from food and drink for nine consecutive days. After that, the Aesir believed, he knew and understood life's mysteries as no one else, except for the Norns, and then built their Empire with the help of that newly gained wisdom._

 _Yet, all these tales are nothing more than that. Tales._

* * *

 _Before the dawn of Creation, there was nothing but darkness and there was an entity called Nemesis, the first of all beings to ever exist. She was born from that darkness and in it, she remained, alone. She wished for companionship, yearned for it fiercely, and waited patiently, even though none could say for how long she waited. While she floated in that darkness, she dreamed of stars and life filling up the blackness; dreamed of worlds so beautiful that they would take away her very breath; dreamed of creatures fair and delicate that would populate these worlds and help them grow into something of astonishing value. The dreams sustained her for a long time but, eventually, when nothing and no one else was spawned by either the darkness or her restless imagination, she grew tired of her loneliness and her tiredness soon turned into despair._

 _One day, even if the concepts of day and night did not yet exist at that time, Nemesis could no longer bear it, and she willed her essence to shatter. Her body exploded into atoms and brought forth what she had most desired in her lonely subsistence and that was, above all else, something that would structure the infinite darkness, in which she had been forced to dwell, providing it with dimensions of some sort—in short, something that would be later thought of as **Space**. She had also wished for something that would set apart the darkness from the opposite that she believed it must possess—something like **Time** —and for something that would provide matter where there was nothingness and the force to act upon that matter, something like **Power**. Apart from that, she had dreamed of stars so bright that they would blind anyone who dared to lay eyes upon them and of worlds so prospering that they would instill the wish to live upon them in any being. Beings so fair and proud and so full of life and hunger and curiosity that they would take these worlds and transform them into something of unspeakable beauty. Beings that, like her, possessed a sentient core capable of thought and imagination and emotion—a **Mind** —and an essence that defined them even after they would cease to exist—like a **Soul** —and that lived in a structural arrangement of different particles that provided them with what they could believe in as their **Reality**._

 _Everything that the imagination of Nemesis had not been able to bring into being when she still lived exploded into existence with the shockwaves rippling through the darkness after her violent demise, materializing into seven powerful singularities, six of which have become known throughout the universe as the Infinity Stones. Six incredibly mighty gems, glimmering in the brightest shades of blue, green, purple, yellow, orange and red, that granted its future wielders control of the very aspects Nemesis herself had longed to control in her state of helplessness. The seventh singularity, however, which remained where Nemesis had willingly ended her agonizing existence, took the form of a black gem, hardly visible in the surrounding darkness, and into this poured her conscience and her power. From her conscience grew a tree so powerful and so resilient that nothing could ever hope to cut its branches; a tree so beautiful that it would be gazed upon with admiration and humility for eons henceforth; a tree so infested with magic that it would continuously pulse between the corporeal and the transient, never allowing anyone but the most omnipotent of beings to comprehend its immensity; the tree whose existence the Aesir became aware of and named **Yggdrasil** —the World Tree._

 _Within its trunk grew a cave and within that a well that gave birth to the **Norns** ; creatures that knew the fate of the universe and decided what was to happen and for what reason, which was another thing Nemesis had yearned for so desperately. From the tree's branches grew the worlds she had dreamed of during her lonely days. The first of all these worlds was Asgard, the home of those fair and remarkable beings that Nemesis had envisioned in her grueling existence and that would later call themselves Gods. The first of their rulers was, indeed, Buri, grandfather of Odin, father of Bor and great-grandfather of Thor, even if he had not come into existence by a cow licking ice but simply by her imagination. Then came all those other worlds populated by giants, elves, dwarves, snakes, monsters or trolls, or by tiny little beings that resembled the residents of Asgard in appearance but were far less graceful, far less knowledgeable, far less long-living and far less powerful, and that the Aesir would refer to as mortals or humans._

 _And what a delightful sight these little creatures were with their desires and impulses and hopes and fears! Shortly after Nemesis had ended her life, seeing from afar that all of her dreams had come true indeed, she longed to be reborn to experience the marvels of a blackness filled with life and light in the flesh. Her conscience along with the powers of her imagination and her dark impulses endured, clinging to the foolish hope that one day she would be reborn among them. This thought was pulsating through the World Tree when the newly created worlds were still young, sending pleas for help across the worlds to be reunited with the rest of her. Even if Nemesis could not tell how she had come by this knowledge, she sensed in the core of her being that only a reunion with the scattered splinters of her being with her conscience would allow her rebirth. At the same time, however, she began to suspect deep within her that a reunion would destroy all of which she had created and so she remained torn between the urge to be part of the life she had brought into existence with her dreams and the fear that she would destroy it should the reunion ever came to pass._

 _Her torment, however, was for naught. In truth, Nemesis did not need to worry about the occurrence of this reunion for unfathomable eons since Búri never responded to the magical powers emanating from Yggdrasil. After defending Asgard against the Frost Giants, the Dark Elves and the Fire Demons and thereby ensuring its hegemony across the worlds, he lived a life of bliss on Asgard until the time had come to pass his duties along to his son. Bor was a little more susceptible to the silent pleas her conscience passed on to the Aesir through the dreams instilled by Yggdrasil's magical branches but he did not manage to decipher them all. He did, however, collect three of the remaining six fragments of her essence with his sons, Odin, Vili and Vé, ensuring that Reality, Time and Space were, after eons of being lost in the vastness of the universe, within her reach again. Shortly after, however, the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim attacked Asgard for the fragment—a fluid, ever-changing mass of red mist—and fled with it to their homelands of ragged mountains to use it for the purpose of plunging the entire universe back into the darkness Nemesis had come from. Bor and his sons had been unprepared for this assault but charged after them nonetheless, thwarting their plans with great losses on their side. Having lost a great number of loyal Asgardian soldiers, Bor chose to bury the Reality Stone where none would ever find it again; but not without extracting some of its powers to keep it for the Aesir._

 _Before he could do any more to ensure Asgard's safety, Bor fell victim to a terrible illness and Odin was entrusted with the task of ruling Asgard in his stead, which alarmed Nemesis. Where Bor had been humble and gracious, Odin was hungry for knowledge, bloodthirsty and restless. He took a wife and fathered Hela, who was all of these things as well, and more. Her mind was filled with a terrible darkness that would drive her to do inexplicable things once she had come of age. One day, when Hela was still young, Odin came to Yggdrasil, seeking the wisdom of the Norns in his quest to conquer the entire universe. What he found instead of advice was the black gem, which he seized for himself. Susceptible to her greatest fear that her reunion with the remaining stones might cause the entire universe to collapse in upon itself, he sealed it deep below the vaults of Asgard, ensuring that none would ever dare to retrieve it. He invented a prophecy of the end of the worlds—Ragnarök, the so-called Twilight of the Gods—that would come to pass if anyone were to move the Odinsword beneath which he had sealed her. He too foretold that one of them, a person he referred to simply as 'The Tangler', was going to cause this to happen and thereby ensured that none of them would ever dare to move the sword, lest they bring the disappointment of the Allfather upon them. The Aesir believed he had seen this future when he had hung himself from Yggdrasil itself and thus started to believe that Ragnarök was upon them, doing everything in their might to prevent their inevitable destiny to claim them._

 _As time wore on, Odin, his brothers and his daughter Hela conquered the eight remaining worlds and subjected them to their will with the armies of Asgard behind them, causing unspeakable bloodshed. In the process, they gathered the remaining three fragments of her essence; if not without cost. Hela's mother succumbed to grief and horror. Retrieving what the Asgardians and others had come to refer to as the Mind Stone by then cost the life of Vili, who was slain on the battlefield of a cold planet. Retrieving the Soul Stone, who had grown sentient and malicious far quicker than any of the others, demanded the sacrifice of a loved one, which drove Odin to throw Vé, his own flesh and blood, off a cliff onto a floor of stone where his neck shattered like glass. The last of them, Power, was, by contrast, rather easy to obtain and, suddenly, Nemesis found herself overwhelmed with a curiosity what they would do with the might that was given to them. She watched in awe as Odin created a sustaining energy source from the stones he had collected by fusing them with the magic of Yggdrasil; a power that would go down in history as the Odinforce and that would have no equal for as long as the universe remained. She watched in awe as he infused a loyal soldier of his with the power to see into the universe and all souls residing within it. She watched him create a magical bridge that shone in the brightest of colors and allowed the Aesir to travel between worlds whenever they pleased without as much as scratch; and that they named Bifröst while the primitive earthlings simply named it 'rainbow' after they had caught a glimpse of its shine on their skies during the travels of the Gods. She watched him transfer the red magic of the Reality Stone into a few selected beings whom he thought capable of wielding such force. She watched him instruct the dwarves, who operated the magical forges of Nidavellir, to create a weapon that would be able to harness the energy of the Power Stone and that would later become Gungnir, a formidable spear feared across all words. She watched in awe as Odin created many more miracles that she would never have been able to dream with her powers._

 _Odin was cruel, yes, Nemesis sensed it, but he was also fiercely intelligent and incredibly resourceful and, suddenly, the thought of what he could do with the universe she had only imagined set every single one of her no longer existent nerves on fire. Sealed away in her prison with a spell that no being could ever hope to break as long as the Allfather still lived, Nemesis began to draw immense pleasure from this universe and from all the love and passion, all the joy and malice, all the chaos and destruction that the Aesir infested upon it; feasting on the fruits of her dreams like maggots on a rotten apple in a state of morbid bliss._

 _Until the warnings started. Enthralled by the spectacle of Odin's reign, Nemesis hardly noticed the desperate magical pleas of the stones that wafted through the universe at first, until their cries became unbearably shrill and impossible to overhear. Odin had grown too malicious, too deceiving, too cruel, and the stones, which had been birthed, after all, by her innocent wish for companionship, began to suffer with each new transgression against the beings the Allfather thought beneath him. Jolted from her stupor, Nemesis realized that her children would not survive if they were to be subjected to Odin's fierce cravings for omnipotence much longer. And she feared for them, mourned for them. Her conscience reached out to Odin's twisted mind, whispering to him that what he had prophesied to his people as Ragnarök would truly be upon him if he continued down his path of bloodshed and destruction. "You have gained much from my essence, Allfather," she told him. "Too much. Stop your conquest, set the stones free and no harm shall come to your people. If you choose to ignore me, all that you value shall perish."_

 _Even if Odin did not appreciate her premonition at all, he eventually heeded her advice, for he had feared for some time now that some powerful being, whose existence he was of yet oblivious to, might come forth and try to emulate his deeds. His daughter Hela, who had grown into one of the fiercest warriors and one of the most ferocious beings in all the worlds, opposed his decision to put an end to Asgard's aspiration for dominance. With all the power they held at their fingertips, she cried out, it would be foolish to stop now. Before she could dare to fight him for the throne of Asgard, Odin unceremoniously decided to banish her for her murderous intentions with the help of the Odinforce, only half-aware that it had been him and his dark desires of conquest and mastery that had spawned the evil inside of her._

 _With Hela gone, Odin took a new wife, Frigga, and fathered Thor, the Thundergod, and, after eons of bloodshed, tried to establish peace across the Realms in order to impede Ragnarök; the threat he had so foolishly devised before Nemesis had made him believe that it was real. The Allfather watched Thor grow from an infant into a toddler and fought the last Great War against the Frost Giants of Jotunheim after the giants had threatened to subjugate Midgard by plunging it into a world of ice devoid of any life, any hope. The Allfather and his army drove the giants out of Midgard and followed them into the cold waste of Jotunheim with great cost. Many Asgardians were slain and Odin's right eye was cut from its socket by a jagged, icy blade wielded by Laufey, King of the Jotuns. Eventually, the Asgardians defeated the giants and, after wresting the promise of an armed truce from them, Odin took not only the source of their power, a powerful magical artifact known as The Casket of Ancient Winters, but also Laufey's son Loki back to Asgard._

 _Back on the Realm Eternal, Odin used the remaining power of the Reality Stone, which his father had kept safe, to transform the giant's offspring into one of them. There was a shadow in his heart when he did so; a shadow that Nemesis herself was not aware of and that only the Reality Stone itself perceived, faint though it was. Odin assured himself that raising the giant's boy as his son would serve as an insurance that the truce with the Jotuns would never be broken, that there would be ever-lasting peace across the Realms, but, deep inside of him, he hoped, wished even, that Loki would grow up alongside his son Thor as the scorned second prince. That he would eventually grow into a man angry enough to help sustain the belief among the Aesir that he was 'The Tangler' that was going to cause Ragnarök and that their wariness would help him to sustain the illusion that he had drank from the well of wisdom inside of Yggdrasil. Turning a blind eye to the dark urges that still pulsed beneath his chest, no pun intended here, the Allfather mistreated the giant's son from a very young age, all the while ensuring not only Loki and Thor but also himself that the two dissimilar brothers were equals._

 _After defeating the Frost Giants, Odin saw to the second part of Nemesis' warning and dispersed the stones that had helped to ensure Asgard's position of hegemony for centuries across the stars lest they draw unwanted attention to his new, peaceful kingdom. Two of the stones, he brought to Midgard. One, the Time Stone, he sealed within a necklace that he gave to a young Midgardian scholar called Agamotto, whom he taught in magic to ensure Midgard's survival against any attack from the rest of the Realms and who would later establish the order of the Masters of the Mystic Arts with the help of its magic. The other, the Space Stone, he sealed within a glowing cube that would come to be known as the Tesseract, which he buried it deep below the plains of Tønsberg after he had fought off the relentless armies of the Frost Giants and the mortals there ensured him their ever-lasting gratitude. The Power Stone, he sealed within an artifact that would be later simply referred to as 'The Orb', which he brought to a forsaken, stony planet that he thought would never be set foot upon by anyone. The Soul Stone he returned to the place where he had sacrificed his brother, demanding Vé's life back in exchange for the gem to the ghostly entity that had claimed it, but was informed that a sacrifice made to the Soul Stone could not be reclaimed. So be it, thought Odin, for at least this stone will never be recovered by anyone else once they learn of the price that must be paid for its possession and thus the quest to collect them all will never be fulfilled. The Mind Stone, which Odin sensed to be one of the most treacherous, he sealed within a scepter he had forged by the same fires that had brought forth Gungnir and Mjølnir, the powerful hammer he had once bestowed upon Hela and would later bestow upon his first-born son. For reasons unknown, he buried this scepter on an asteroid belt in the vicinity of Asgard._

 _As soon as Odin had abandoned his murderous fantasies of omnipotence, Asgard prospered and turned into that beautiful, peaceful world Nemesis had imagined in the dreams that had sustained her before her death. The stones' cries for help faded away. The worlds were at peace. Soothed by the promise of peace and beauty, Nemesis fell into a deep, satisfied, eon-lasting slumber in her prison and the existence of a being that had birthed the Infinity Stones, if it had ever been known at all, passed into history and from there into legend and then into myth. To this day, her existence is a mystery to all but a few beings and those who do know, or suspect, have simply called her conscience 'The Seventh Stone' for an ineffably long time._

 _Nemesis slept as Thor and Loki grew from boys into men and ended the Vikings wars on Midgard with their father. She slept as new worlds sprang into existence from the dreams of the Aesir beyond the branches of Yggdrasil and new life stirred awake in the vastness beyond the Nine Realms protected by Odin Allfather. She slept as those beings grew conscious and their minds filled with dark thoughts and malevolent intents. She slept as those beings, who were as dangerous and deranged as they were smart and susceptible, began to hear whispers of the stones. She slept as countless of them set out to retrieve the stones from their hiding places. She slept as the stones wreaked havoc across the universe, growing ever more sentient with each wielder._

 _She sleeps, even now._

 _She sleeps as a ruthless being bearing the name of Thanos sets out on his merciless quest to destroy half of the universe with their help. She sleeps as this creature travels to Nidavellir and asks Eitri of the dwarves, one of the greatest magic wielders in the Nine Realms, to forge a Gauntlet that will be able to withstand the repercussions of using all six stones. She sleeps as Eitri ensures that the stones' magic will shrivel and die if they are ever again used for such atrocities as they have during the long and bloody reign of Odin. She sleeps as Odin watches the terror across the universe unfold with the one eye that he still possesses after the battle against the Frost Giants, anxious but still confident that his son Thor—who, the Norns had assured him, was to grow into the greatest of all the Aesir—will fend off the threats looming beyond their borders. However, with the universe spinning out of control as a hunger for war and darkness grew in many hearts of its inhabitants, the threats build faster than even the Allfather could have imagined. His long reign, Odin suddenly senses with unmistakable clarity, is unexpectedly coming to a swift end and that realization plunges him into insanity and despair. And so it will come to pass that Odin decides to proclaim his son Thor king of Asgard before he is anywhere near ready for this task and before his adopted son Loki—offspring of his archenemy Laufey, King of the Frost Giants—can fully grow into 'The Tangler'._

 _Sensing the chaos erupting on and threatening the supremacy of Asgard in the aftermath of Odin's decision, Nemesis will stir again for the first time in eons, trying to warn the Allfather once more, but Odin's mind will remain closed to her and there will be no one else to hear her pleas. Still confined by the Allfather's spell, Nemesis will not be able to do anything but watch before, at last, almost all the remaining splinters of her being will be brought within her reach again. The Space Stone will find its way back to Asgard and will be stored a mere wall away from where she dwells. The Power Stone, while still sealed in the Orb, will not be far either. The Time Stone and the Mind Stone will remain on Midgard, only a Bifröst's journey away. The Reality Stone will come back to Asgard as well but will soon be carried away again, even if not far enough for her to stop sensing its presence, faint though it might have been. The only one whose energies she will not be able to detect are that of the Soul Stone._

 _With the stones so close to each other once more, Nemesis will feel them stirring awake as the universe is slowly succumbing to malice, destruction and grief. She will reach out for the Allfather but Odin's mind will continue to remain out of her reach, every trace of his once so far-reaching conscience gone for good. She will tap into the magic of Yggdrasil ever so desperately—trying to send out a warning to any magical being who might be willing to listen, trying to tell them what would happen if the Infinity Stones were to be abused once more—but all her pleas will remain unheard._

 _Nemesis will try to free herself, in vain at first, but eventually, the spell that has sealed her will be broken and Nemesis will feel that she is no longer confined. The Allfather will have perished and the universe, she knows, will soon bear the damage of his passing. Still, she will no longer be a goddess, no longer a being. She will not be able to move. Her conscience will remain locked in a black gem the size of thumbnail and she will not be able to break out of it. Not at once. Listening to her children's desperate warnings, agonizing over her inability to save them or any of which she has dreamed, the walls confining her will suddenly burst as the fires of Muspelheim consume Asgard and burn it to the ground. Millennia after she has ended her own existence, Nemesis will finally be free again._

 _Well, almost. Before she will begin to surmise what has transpired, the Goddess of Death—Hela, Odin's cast-out first-born daughter—will grab her and carry her deep into the frozen wastelands of Niflheim. Unfortunately, Hela's mind too will remained closed to her and while Nemesis broods, trying to concoct a plan of how she could bring the stones within her reach again, Loki, son of Asgard and Jotunheim, will reach out, trying to bind his spirit to the Space Stone in his final moments._

 _The sons of Odin, she will decide then, must bring the stones back to her. They must bring her children home._

 _She will grant Hela access to Loki's memories and, with his voice and his magic, she will send a call to Thor, knowing that only Odin's heirs would be able to hide her children in such a way that the universe might not be lost again._

 _And then she will wait, until Thor and Loki fulfill their destiny._


End file.
